Helping Picky Eaters with a Food Journal

Dealing with a picky eater isn’t only challenging because meal times can be a struggle but also because those habits can affect your child’s development and relationship with food. There’s plenty you can do to get a fussy child to try new foods, but to ensure you’re making progress and maintaining it, a food journal can be helpful.

Why a Food Journal?

Food journals are synonymous with managing the progress of a diet, but for parents of fussy eaters, they’re insight into your child’s fussy eating.

Documenting what your child is and isn’t eating and what they will or won’t eat is the first step to helping broaden their selective palate.

For example, your kiddo may not like the texture of foods when cooked or prepared in a certain way but could find those same foods enjoyable when they’re prepared differently. You can make that distinction with a food journal.

How Much Should a Four to Eight-Year-Old Eat?

A child between four and eight years old should be eating between 1200 calories and 1400 calories a day. Girls should have 1200 calories (5000 kilojoules), while boys should have 1400 calories (5900 kilojoules).

While you can fill nutrient deficiencies with vitamin supplements, calories cannot. However, for your child’s health, you don’t want those to be empty.

Empty calories can lead to weight gain, a weak immune system, and ailments, not to mention rotten teeth. For some extremely picky eaters, empty calories can lead to a subdued appetite for nutritious foods, that could make the child underweight.

A food journal helps you ascertain how many calories your child consumes and which foods make up most of those calories. Ideally, fruit, veg, healthy fats, proteins, and grains should account for most calories.

Finding and Identifying Patterns in a Food Journal

A food journal is also excellent at tracking your child’s habits — which will help you identify destructive patterns and detail how to end those patterns.

It also details methods that have expanded your child’s palate effectively.

You can then recycle strategies that have proven effective when introducing new foods.

How to Determine if Your Child’s Making Progress?

Often parents can become discouraged by their picky eaters and choose to give in to a child’s restrictive eating rather than attempt to expand it.

In this regard, a food journal acts as motivation. You’ve documented your child’s eating patterns and reactions to new foods. The journal is a progress report that tells the story of where your child started and documents the journey of growth.

As the months drag on, you’ll notice that the food journal is a testament to your child’s developing healthy habits despite the challenges.