Working through phases of picky eating is hard, but these books will help. They are the ones I turn to time and time again for both personal and professional advice.
Best Books for Picky Eaters
I know that we all want a quick fix solution when it comes to eating struggles with our kids, but honestly, there’s usually a little more work involved. There are habits to undo, new routines to get the hang of, and surprising things that you may not realize are negatively impacting what your child is eating. To help, these books all provide super sane and easy-t0-implement advice when you feel like you’re totally out of resources to help the situation.
How to Raise a Mindful Eater: 8 Powerful Principles for Transforming Your Child’s Relationship with Food
By Maryann Jacobsen, MS, RD;Â $5.99 for the Kindle edition
I think I’ve read this book at least 4 times and it’s been so helpful for me personally in navigating some issues with my kids—especially how to handle the treats situation since we often seem inundated with them. The Kindle version is really inexpensive and the book is a quick read, which means that you can put the advice into practice in no time at all. I highly recommend this one for navigating regular picky eating that may be a source of constant frustration for you and specific issues like obsession with treats.
Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating: A Step-by-Step Guide for Overcoming Selective Eating, Food Aversion, and Feeding Disorders
ByÂ
Fearless Feeding: How to Raise Healthy Eaters from High Chair to High School
By Jill Castle and Maryann Jacobsen
From two registered dieticians, this book goes step-by-step through what to feed kids, how to feed kids, and why kids behave certain ways during (and in between) meal times as related to food. They also go through very specific age ranges to help sort through potential issues from toddlers through teenagers, and it even includes tips to help us parents get our own food issues out of the way of our kids. I love having this book on my shelf!
It’s Not About the Broccoli:Â Three Habits to Teach Your Kids for a Lifetime of Healthy Eating
By Dina Rose
Dina is a sociologist, parent educator, and feeding expert with a seriously no-nonsense approach to feeding kids. She takes a fairly hard line with her advice, but if you are serious about making changes in your family’s approach to feeding your kids, this is a great read. (I will say that I don’t agree with her anti-muffins stance but I like the book otherwise!)
First Bite: How We Learn How to Eat
By Bee Wilson
This isn’t a book with advice about feeding kids in the same guidebook style as the others, but it does contain a broader look at why we feed our kids the way that we do and it’s such a fascinating read if you want some big picture perspective. It’s well-researched and is chock full of information about how our food habits form in early childhood, which is useful info for any parent of small kids!
I would add to this list My Child Won’t Eat!: How to Enjoy Mealtimes Without Worry by Carlos Gonzalez . For me, is the best book about kids and eating I ever seen. Differently to others (e.g. French Kids Eat Everything only depressed me, when I compared even my own childhood and what my picky child eats, not mention the meals in the book – and I’m not American and never try to feed kids with McDonald’s etc) it gave me hope, more confidence and good bust to deal with my extreme picky eater oldest one. I think every mom should read this book.
Thank you, I’m not familiar with that one but I’ll look it up!
French Kids Eat Everything was pretty good. It actually has a lot of the same ideas that you use: it takes many tries, variety, no short-order cooking, etc
Yes, that’s a good one too!