Creative ways to help a fussy eater — 2

Judith Yeabsley
7 min readOct 10, 2022

Making food fun, interesting and about more than just eating is a great long-term strategy.

Building more comfort around food is always the end goal. If a child is unwilling to try new food, anxious at mealtimes or is not adding things to the menu, then supporting them to be more relaxed and positive around food really helps.

None of these are magic bullet ways to stop fussy eating or things that will miraculously have children happily eating the family meal. They can though help you approach food in a new way and in turn, teach your child to do the same.

Many of them are appropriate for children of any age but may have to be adapted to suit. Even if you have teens, there are activities that can be a win for them too!

Creative ways to help a fussy eater: link in comments

1. Shopping — food shopping may sound stressful and/or a boring thing to do with children, but it doesn’t have to be:

i) Supermarket — involving children in the shopping can change the dynamic. Rather than dragging them unwillingly around the store, if we empower them it can be a totally different experience.

We can give them their own shopping list. If they are pre-reading we can glue pictures. If they are older, perhaps they have input into what goes on…

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Judith Yeabsley

The Confident Eater, author of Creating Confident Eaters.