Fussy Eater Solutions

Fussy Eater Solutions children's slippery slope into fussy eating can cause much stress and worry to parents. Kidzeat can help you.

Parenting your Fussy Eater
on the Path to Confident Eating with Marie-France Laval the Fussy Eater Specialist.
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Dietitian-Nutritionist, Clinical Hypnotherapist and Psychotherapist, Counsellor and Home Economist

05/08/2026

I don’t recommend asking children to play with food.

Instead, I encourage playful, purposeful interaction that helps them build confidence and practical skills.

In this video, a child, on the autism spectrum, super rigid with food, cuts hard-boiled eggs in three different ways. He explores the texture, practises using a cutter, and becomes more familiar with the food without pressure to eat it.

This is desensitisation through food skills.

As his confidence and excitement grew, he then chose to eat the eggs.

13/07/2026

One refused carrot can somehow become a whole family intervention.

When everyone is trying to help, meals can become more intense, not less.

For many children with persistent fussy eating, food anxiety, sensory sensitivities or ARFID traits, the issue is not a lack of advice. It is often that too much focus at the table increases pressure and reduces safety.

Sometimes the first step is not adding another strategy. It is reducing the noise around the child and rebuilding confidence slowly.

11/07/2026

This little girl was only 4, but she already knew that her eating was a topic.

She walked in during a short chat with her mum and announced that she had tried chocolate and a new chicken nugget.

It was sweet, but it also showed how quickly children can become aware that adults are watching their eating.

For some children, this can create pressure, even when everyone is kind and encouraging.

Food becomes more than food. It becomes something to report, prove or defend.

That is why I often encourage parents to reduce the spotlight around eating and focus instead on safety, confidence and quiet progress.

09/07/2026

Books about eating fruit and vegetables can be lovely, and they may help some children.

But when food feels unsafe, logical persuasion has limits.

A child may understand that fruit and vegetables are healthy and still feel unable to eat them.

That is not stubbornness. It can be a threat response.

This is why persistent fussy eating, food anxiety and ARFID traits often need a different approach: one that works with safety, sensory responses, confidence and the nervous system, not just reason.



https://zurl.co/0C8Tn

One of the most useful things I show parents is that food safety rituals are not random.A child may accept a particular ...
07/07/2026

One of the most useful things I show parents is that food safety rituals are not random.

A child may accept a particular food:

at home, but not at school

from one parent, but not another

at a familiar restaurant, but nowhere else

when it comes in its usual packaging

when it is served in a particular way

The food itself may be exactly the same.

To adult logic, this can look inconsistent.

But the child’s nervous system is not only responding to the food.

It may also be responding to the environment, the person delivering it, the level of predictability and the conditions surrounding the eating experience.

The ritual is often doing a job.

It may be helping the child reduce uncertainty, maintain control or feel protected from a feared sensory or physical experience.

That does not mean every ritual should remain in place forever.

It means we should understand what it is protecting before trying to remove it.

In my work, safety rituals are valuable information.

They help us identify what the child believes must happen for eating to feel manageable, and where greater safety, flexibility and confidence need to be developed.

30/06/2026

Many parents I meet are doing things they never imagined they would be doing years later.

Preparing separate meals.

Following a child around with food.

Negotiating bites.

Hand feeding an older child.

Not because they want to.

Because they're trying to help.

Because they're worried.

Because they're doing the best they can with the information and fears they have at the time.

When we understand the fear underneath these behaviours, we stop seeing them as mistakes.

And start seeing them for what they often are:

Attempts to protect a child we love.

Understanding that is often the first step towards change.

27/06/2026

When feeding difficulties persist, many parents find themselves carrying far more than food concerns.

Worry about nutrition.WH

Worry about health.

Worry about appetite.

Worry about social situations.

And sometimes worry about whether they're doing enough as a parent.

One of the most important questions I ask is:

"What is your fear?"

Because understanding the fear often helps us understand the pressure, stress and emotions that have built up around eating.

Supporting a child often means supporting the parent too. This is why I wrote the FUSSY EATER REBOOT, YOU CAN FIND IT HERE: https://zurl.co/CHOBK

25/06/2026

My client didn't just try sushi for the first time.

She challenged a protective habit that had been influencing her food decisions for years.

Sometimes the strategies we use to stay safe can also limit our opportunities to discover something new.

In this case, smelling unfamiliar foods had become a way of deciding whether they were safe or unsafe before tasting them.

The problem?

A smell can create a prediction that isn't always accurate.

And sometimes what we predict and what we actually experience are very different things.

To her surprise, she liked the sushi.

One of the things I look for in therapy is not just the foods people avoid, but the protective habits, rituals and assumptions that may be keeping them stuck.

Sometimes changing the prediction changes everything.

Neither pressure nor accommodation creates progress in children (or even adults) with feeding difficulties.One of the bi...
23/06/2026

Neither pressure nor accommodation creates progress in children (or even adults) with feeding difficulties.

One of the biggest revelations for parents I work with is that pressure and accommodation can appear to be opposites, but both can keep a child stuck.

Pressure says:

“You need to eat this.”

Accommodation says:

“You never need to face this.”

Pressure increases the child’s sense of threat.

Accommodation can unintentionally confirm the belief that the child is unable to manage.

Of course, accommodations often begin for very good reasons. Parents are trying to help their child eat, reduce distress and keep family life moving.

The problem comes when a short-term protection plan becomes the long-term answer.

In my work, we look for a different path.

The child is not pressured to taste, touch or tolerate food on demand.

But we also begin to question the protective patterns that may no longer be helping.

The aim is not to remove safety.

It is to help the child discover that they can feel safe while also becoming curious, developing skills and beginning to move forward.

22/06/2026

Have you ever noticed that some children reject a food before they've even tasted it?

Before it reaches their mouth.

Before they've taken a bite.

For some children, the challenge starts much earlier than eating.

It might be the appearance.

The smell.

The memory of a previous experience.

The texture they expect.

Or simply a feeling that the food doesn't seem safe.

When we understand that, we stop asking:

"Why won't they just try it?"

And start becoming curious about what happened before the rejection.

That shift can completely change how we understand feeding difficulties.

Because sometimes food can feel difficult long before it reaches the mouth.

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