• Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Our Locations
  • Getting Started
  • Insurance Accepted
  • Online Payments
  • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • KidBitz with Mr. Randy
  • Events
  • Product
  • Sensational Parenting Resources
  • pracitce
SENSATION STATION
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Our Locations
  • Getting Started
  • Insurance Accepted
  • Online Payments
  • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • KidBitz with Mr. Randy
  • Events
  • Product
  • Sensational Parenting Resources
  • pracitce

KidBitz with Dr. Randy

Dr. Randal FEdoruk

I am a pediatric occupational therapist.  I have worked with children in various settings for over twenty years.  I am a professor and I teach pediatrics and mentor Doctoral students completing research with a pediatric focus.  

Categories

All
Child Development
Children
Feeding
Motor Milestones
Motor Skills
Nap
Occupational Therapy
OT
Picky Eating
Sensory Processing
Sleep

Archives

April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
July 2023
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021

Picky Eating

1/31/2021

1 Comment

 
Picture
I am an occupational therapist who works with children who are picky eaters.  Confession, I am a picky eater myself.  When I was a child, my mother used to have to boil eggs so that the yoke was soft.  She would cut toast into strips with crusts removed for me to dip.  Once I dipped my toast, she would have to clean the yoke off the remaining egg white, cut it up and serve it with salt and pepper.  This is the only way I would eat the "jokes" as I referred to them.  As a teenager, I only ate Hawaiian pizza (pineapple and ham) but here is the kicker, I removed the pineapple because I do not like pineapple.  The point is that picky eating is prevalent.  A definition of picky eating based upon qualitative research is liking only a few foods; limited intake; resisting texture or appearance of foods; resistance to new foods.  Researchers have found that picky eating impacts the family meal by adding stress and changing meal preparation (Trofholz, A., Schulte, A., & Berge, J, 2017).  

Picky eating becomes problematic when a child restricts the amount of food they eat and the variety of food groups from which they choose to eat.  The purpose of this blog post is to share some tips to address picky eating, so here goes.
  • Involve your children in meal preparation.  
  • Pair preferred foods with non-preferred foods.
  • Food chaining is when you introduce a food that is like one that they already eat i.e., color, texture, flavor.
  • Provide positive reinforcement for accepting food on their plate, touching, or tasting the food.
  • Set aside time to have fun with food perhaps snack time to take the pressure off eating.

If you are having difficulty with getting your child to eat and mealtimes have become stressful events in your household that disrupt your family function, picky eating may have become problematic and you may need help.  You can talk to your pediatrician about a referral to a feeding specialist who can support you in addressing your child's feeding issues.  Feeding is a complicated behavior.  We eat to get nutrition, to celebrate holidays and religious events, to socialize and we eat for pleasure.  It is not as simple as "to eat or not to eat".  
1 Comment
Margot Rivelis
2/1/2021 03:33:39 am

My daughter (now almost 26 yrs old) was a picky eater. Pasta (plain) and white rice was her staples. When we ate out I'd have to ask them NOT to put on parsley or anything. You know how fancy restaurants think kids want their food to look pretty so they add "green stuff". She would pick off every piece. If a piece of pasta hung over the bowl and touched (or almost touched) the table, she'd take it out of the bowl and place it on her napkin.

This is to help reassure parents that their is a a light at the end of the tunnel. She now cooks the most complex meals and eats EVERYTHING!!! I wish I had Randy in my life when she was younger. Maybe I would have gotten her to eat more things back then.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

Let's Get Connected!


Telephone

P: 401 732 5100 (Warwick)
P:  508 681 3060 (Franklin)

Email

[email protected]
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
  • Our Locations
  • Getting Started
  • Insurance Accepted
  • Online Payments
  • FAQs
  • Testimonials
  • KidBitz with Mr. Randy
  • Events
  • Product
  • Sensational Parenting Resources
  • pracitce