High calorie foods for fussy eaters

High calorie foods for fussy eaters

Many parents of fussy eaters are concerned their child is underweight, too skinny, or not consuming enough calories. If you are worried, checking a child is tracking along their own personal growth curve is an easy way to see at a glance if there’s a major cause for concern.

When food is not something that a child is super comfortable around, then eating can become a chore or something to be avoided. Also, if a child is living on a diet which is limited in variety, frequently eating becomes less interesting.

Having less interest in eating can mean that less is eaten. Or if your child is taking medication that suppresses the appetite it can be challenging to eat enough to fuel the body.

Frequently, the advice in these cases is to increase the calorific value in the foods that are eaten. I agree, but also caution that it can backfire if we are not careful:

i) High calorie foods are generally more filling, so we can find our child wants to eat less volume.

ii) If the food is not appealing, then especially with a picky eater, we can be working against ourselves. The more we enjoy food, the more likely we are to eat.

Similarly, if we are pressuring our child to eat more or eat certain types of food…