If you have a fussy eater at home, you might be tempted to make them sit at the table until they finish their broccoli. But according to a feeding therapist, this could be doing more harm than good.
Jacqui Morgan is a speech-language and feeding therapist and the founder of Foodies, a service that helps families with feeding challenges.
She told Seven Sharp there were a few markers to watch out for.
These included struggling to feed a child for more than six months, if they're eating fewer than 30 foods, or if the amount has shrunk in the past year instead of expanded.
But in terms of solutions, Morgan explained why the "clean plate club" is not a good idea for picky eaters. She said that pressuring kids to eat foods they don’t like or are not ready for can cause them to push back and refuse to eat anything at all.
"Over time, we see it spiralling into mealtime meltdowns, and it becomes a war zone every time you have to get dinner on the table."
She said that this can create a negative association with food and mealtime and lead to stress and conflict for both parents and kids.
The expert added that hot takes and reckons from other parents could easily be wrong, as research continued to prove some traditional techniques to be ineffective.
"Feeding therapy is a pretty new field. The research and the evidence that we have has come about in the last 10 to 15 years at a push."
She advised parents to think in the long term about changing picky habits.
"Don't make your kids go hungry because you don't want to feed them the same thing you've fed them the last 10 nights.
"It's OK. Give them the nuggets. It's fine."
Morgan said "long-term strategies" were ultimately needed if kids declared they could only eat a certain selection of foods.
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