Food and eating: 13 decisions to make together
Picky eaters, sweets, family meals and how food talk shapes a child's relationship with eating.
1. Who controls what and how much
Who decides what a child eats and how much.
4 options · Experts disagree · 6–12 months
2. Picky eating
How you respond when a child refuses most foods: cooking a separate meal, serving one family meal with a safe food on the table, one meal take-it-or-leave-it, hiding vegetables, or repeated exposure without comment.
5 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler
3. Dessert and sweets
How sweets fit into meals: earned by eating dinner, scheduled and limited, served alongside the meal, unrestricted, or avoided entirely in the early years.
5 options · Experts disagree · Toddler
4. Drinks
What your child drinks: only water and milk, juice within limits, soda and sports drinks occasionally, or no rules.
4 options · Well established · Toddler
5. Snacking structure
Whether eating happens at set meal and snack times, on demand all day, or with no snacks at all.
3 options · Your call · Toddler
6. Food as reward or comfort
Whether food is ever used to reward good behavior, soothe upset or motivate, such as a treat for using the potty.
3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler
7. Ultra-processed and convenience food
Ultra-processed foods are industrially made products with ingredients you would not use in a home kitchen, such as packaged snacks, sugary cereals and ready meals.
3 options · Evidence leans one way · Toddler
8. Organic
Whether you buy organic food for your family, all of it, selectively, or not at all.
3 options · Your call · 6–12 months
9. Family dietary pattern
The overall way your family eats: omnivore, mostly vegetarian with some meat, vegetarian, or vegan.
4 options · Experts disagree · 6–12 months
10. Family meals
Whether and how often the family eats together, and whether screens are allowed at the table.
4 options · Your call · Toddler
11. Food away from home
Whether the same rules apply at restaurants, parties and relatives' homes, or whether they relax.
3 options · Your call · Toddler
12. Body, weight and diet talk
How you talk about bodies, weight and diets at home, from avoiding weight talk entirely to treating weight as a health measure when a doctor raises it.
3 options · Evidence leans one way · School age
13. Caffeine and energy drinks
Whether teens may have coffee, tea or energy drinks, from none until adulthood to a little to no rules.
4 options · Well established · Tween