How To Talk About Food With Your Children

It can be our natural inclination to describe foods as “good,” “bad,” “yummy,” or “yucky.” Unfortunately when we use words like this to describe foods to our children, we’re not providing very good information to help encourage them to try new foods. These words are subjective words, and your child may have already learned that something mommy or daddy says is “good” or “yummy” is not something your child thinks is  “good” and “yummy.” These words don’t give them any actual information about what the food is going to taste or feel like in their mouth.

Use descriptive words to talk about food to help children learn about how it might feel when they eat it.

Describe the sensory properties of the food

Instead of using subjective words like “good” and “bad,” use descriptive words to describe the sensory properties of the food. This includes color, texture, shape, temperature, and taste. This helps children start to understand the food, make it more familiar and less scary, predict what it might feel like in their mouth, and relate it to foods they are familiar with.

Here are some examples:

Color: brown, green, white, orange, green, red, yellow

Texture: crunchy, soft, chewy, bumpy, smooth, creamy, juicy, dry

Shape: stick shaped, circle, round, square, moon, rectangle, long, short, thick, thin

Temperature: warm, cold, cool, hot (careful with using this one unless you’re really informing your child it’s too hot and to wait/blow on it, so they don’t become afraid to eat the food, fearing it is hot)

Taste: salty, sweet, sour, tart, fresh, buttery, tastes kind of like… (compare it to a food they are familiar with that it tastes like)

Compare the food to one they know

Compare foods they know and like to new foods to help them become less scary and more familiar.

You can also compare the food to a food they know and/or like with the same or similar sensory properties.

For example, “This asparagus is a green crunchy stick, your green veggie straws are green crunchy sticks, too!” or, “These mashed potatoes are smooth, like yogurt, but they’re salty!” or, “Lasagna is like spaghetti but the noodles are square instead of long and skinny, and there is some more cheese on top,” or, “This cheesy rice is similar to mac and cheese, it has a cheesy sauce and the rice tastes like the macaroni noodles.” This helps them relate the food to foods they know, making them more likely to think about trying it. 

Remember that children are absorbing everything around them. If we model, “Ew yucky,” or display our dislike of foods in front of our children, they are likely to mimic this behavior. Just because you do not like a food, does not mean your child won’t like it! You can say something like, “Daddy is learning to like peas,” or, “Peas are round and green!”

Avoid asking, “Do you like it?” 

This sets children up to say, “no,” categorize it as a food they do not like, and shut down from trying it again. As we know, children need to taste a food many many times before they know if they like it or not, so they can’t really answer this question accurately anyways. 

If your child does respond with, “yuck,” or, “I don’t like it,” after tasting something, you can say something like, “Nice work tasting it!” or, “Our taste buds need to taste a food a lot of times before they know if they like it, you’re still learning about squash, just like you’re learning to write your letters!” or, “Our taste buds can change, you might like it next time.” You can also remind them of new foods they have tried that they end up liking, “Remember when you tried pizza for the first time? You were a little nervous, but now you like it a lot!” It’s also important for children to understand that not every single food we eat is our favorite food. You can model statements like, “Broccoli isn’t my favorite food, but I do like that it helps me fight off germs!” 

Reframe children’s identity around food dislikes

Help your child reframe their identity as someone who doesn’t like certain foods with language.

If your child makes statements like, “I don’t eat vegetables,” you can help them reframe this by stating back, “You’re still learning to like vegetables,” or, “You don’t eat vegetables yet, but you’re learning to, it can take time to learn something new.” This reframing becomes very important so children are less fixated on identifying themselves as someone who does not eat certain foods. 

But don’t make talking about food the only topic of discussion.

Take the spotlight off of your child’s eating and talk about other topics, like what they made in art class today.

This can make children, and especially picky eaters, feel like the spotlight is on them, and less likely to try something new. You can casually describe the food at the start of the meal or as you’re eating it, and give some gentle verbal praise for any interactions you do see your child doing with the food, if your child responds positively to verbal praise. For example, “Thank you so much for scooping more salad onto my plate, that was very helpful,” or, “Nice work giving a lizard lick to your sweet potato, I’m going to try that, too!” Some children, however, may respond better if you leave them be to their food exploration, without bringing too much attention to it. Use this time to also talk about your day, or something fun that is happening tomorrow or coming up on the weekend. Family meals have been found not only to help with healthy eating habits, but to have so many additional benefits, from mental health to communication skills.

Talking about Healthy vs Unhealthy food

As we mentioned earlier, children are absorbing everything. When we talk about food to children, describing it as “healthy” or “good for you” and “unhealthy” or “bad for you” are not particularly helpful. For one, telling a child a food is healthy is not going to compel them to eat it in most cases, and may even do the opposite. Additionally, we want children to have a positive relationship with food. If we are constantly speaking about “healthy” and “unhealthy” food, or foods being “good” or “bad” for us, we are already starting to send messaging to our children about food guilt, which can be a lifelong struggle for many. Instead, we can talk about specific things foods can do for our body. For example, when talking about proteins, we can say they help us build strong muscles, with fruits and vegetables, we can talk about how they help us fight off sicknesses, and keep a healthy brain, heart, and eyes, with carbs, we can say they give us long energy, and with sugar, we can say it gives us quick energy that sometimes leaves us feeling tired quickly after. 

Overall, keep talk about food as descriptive, both in terms of describing it, and for how the food can help our body. This helps give our children useful information to help them work towards eating new foods, rather than non-descriptive words like “yummy,” “good,” and “bad.”

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This website and information on this blog post is provided for educational purposes only. It is not meant as medical advice, intended to replace a speech-language or feeding assessment, therapy from a speech-language pathologist, or serve as medical or nutritional care for a child. It is recommended that you discuss any concerns or questions you might have with your Speech-Language Pathologist, pediatrician, and medical team, and develop an individualized team plan specifically for your child.