Is Your Child’s Safe Food Too Much of a Crutch?
Listen in for part 2 in this four part series on how your child's snacks may be perpetuating picky eating and poor nutrition and what you as the parent can do about it.
This episode dives into those foods that we may find ourselves using as a crutch. It is normal and natural to find ourselves doing so, but we can't rely on these staples the same way forever.
Doing so can perpetuate not only ongoing problems with our child's picky eating, but also prolong poor nutrition by crowding out other, more nutrient-dense options.
So whether you find yourself in a season of survival mode as a mom or are recognizing, it is time to get unstuck and to start developing strength around your child's snacking, this episode will give you some exercises you can begin working through.
Full Episode Transcription
Please note this a raw transcription. If something doesn’t read correctly, toggle to that timestamp in the show so that you can listen in on what was actually being said!
[00:00:00] So I want you to ask yourself, What is a food that you recognize as a little bit of a crutch?
[00:00:04] What is something that you're leaning on, not as an aid in a certain season that has an appropriate application, but instead as a food that you're leaning on as a crutch because you're avoiding dealing with a problem.
[00:00:15] There are times where we do avoid dealing with a problem because it's just easier to lean on the crutch than have to carry the weight or to take the actions that are required to make a step forward or make an improvement in our family's feeding environment. But one of the first things is for you to begin identifying what foods are a crutch in your family and what foods may be perpetuating picky eating or poor nutrition for your child because they're being offered on repeat or excessively beyond a certain scenario or season that demands something like that option.
[00:01:34] If you listen to episode one in this four-part series on why our kids snacking is perpetuating picky eating and poor nutrition, you know that I talked about how the comfort that our kids can often get from that consistency in the foods that we offered can become problematic. That's why for this episode I wanna talk about how the comfort that they feel is often something we as moms also feel.
[00:02:01] And how, while we want low anxiety in and around the table in our family's feeding environment, what we don't want to have happen is us forming a crutch with certain foods. Because as moms, we all know that there's different seasons of motherhood and there's different foods and different things that our family is going to have to fall back on when we are in survival mode.
[00:02:22] All of us have been there and there's no judgment or shame about that. However, when you are in a season of any added capacity and you realize this food's becoming a crutch for our family. Or, the amount of consistency that we have in offering this same given snack, or the same breakfast every day, or sending the same lunch to school every day, and that consistency is ultimately perpetuating some of my child's picky eating where they're not accepting of other snack options. They're not willing to eat anything else at breakfast. They refuse anything else in their lunchbox and that consistency that once provided our family comfort is now creating conflict. And oftentimes the reason I see that happen is because we have used that given food as a crutch.
[00:03:05] So first let's talk about what is a crutch. The expression of, "Oh, she's using that as a crutch," is one that we all have probably used in different applications. But in the feeding space, I often will see families use different foods as a crutch to avoid dealing with a problem or deal with it in an apathetic and less intentional way.
[00:03:25] And again, there is no judgment or shame here.
[00:03:28] In my family, there are plenty of foods that we have offered as a crutch, and I'm gonna go ahead and give you an example.
[00:03:34] One example would be my daughter's love for chocolate croissants. There's some at Costco. I evaluated that they didn't feel like something that were nutritionally completely deficient for my family, and we had bought them. My daughter loved them, and very quickly I realized that this could become a crutch. Because what was happening in the morning is if I didn't plan enough time to pack lunches the night before and was defaulting to packing them in the morning and needing to get breakfast ready, I didn't always have time to do both.
[00:04:06] And so I would use these chocolate croissants as a crutch and in a rush, offer them up to my kids. But even when I made the behavior change to ensure that I had enough time to make a more well-balanced breakfast, what I noticed is my daughter also would want to use these chocolate croissants as a crutch, and she would just want to eat them each and every day.
[00:04:27] And so looking at that consistency challenge that I talked about in the first episode of this four-part series is each and every one of those chocolate croissants is the exact same. But when my daughter wants to eat these for breakfast each and every day, I'm perpetuating picky eating and poor nutrition because she's not getting the nutritional variety that she needs in that first eating opportunity of the day.
[00:04:51] She's also not branching out and having more variations of different food, even if it was toast every morning with different toppings, at least there'd be a little bit more nutritional variety, but also variation of the foods being offered to help prevent some of those picky eating tendencies. And so in our home, I noticed these chocolate croissants can very easily become a crutch.
[00:05:14] So does that mean that I don't even buy them anymore? No, it just means that I look at these foods not as good or bad or unhealthy or healthy, but any food used as a crutch for the avoidance of taking action on our own as adults or in helping equip our kids can be problematic. And so while I still will buy these chocolate croissants that I know my daughter enjoys from time to time and offer them, I do have to be intentional that we don't use them as a crutch.
[00:05:43] So when you find a specific food becoming a crutch for your family, what can we actually do about it? One of the things that I noticed in my home, first and foremost was on me. I'm in charge of what, when and where food is offered. And if I was leaning on this chocolate croissant as a crutch and I was offering that as the what before school being the when and where often on the go as she was running out the door because we didn't have enough time in the morning, I wasn't taking intentional action about my responsibility and with my roles as a parent. If you're unfamiliar with the division of responsibility or some of the feeding roles, this is something that I spend a considerable amount of time equipping parents to better understand and apply in their own feeding relationship with their families within my Mealtimes made easy method.
[00:06:30] I'm gonna be opening enrollment for that in mid-June, if you wanna go ahead and get on the wait list. You can go to mealtimesmadeeasymethod.com and click the link, and that'll take you to the wait list. But if that's not something that you're feeling proficient or confident in doing yet, and thus you're leaning on a food as a crutch, that can be something that's perpetuating your child's picky eating.
[00:06:51] And so the first thing I realized is I have to get my own role in order. Even as a dietitian mom, some seasons are crazy. Some seasons, I'm staying up late working or taking care of household tasks, and I'm exhausted and my morning routine is off and I didn't pack lunches the night before. I slept in later than I had wanted, and I'm running out of time in the morning.
[00:07:10] And while there's seasons that that happens, and there's always seasons that we need to find quick and easy staples, like in this case, a chocolate croissant, we can't expect our children's nutrition to improve or eating habits to get any better if we're not taking the first, initial step as parents. So I had to address what, when, and where that food was being offered as the first primary problem, and I had to do something about it.
[00:07:37] As I mentioned, through a variety of different actions and behavior changes I needed to recognize I needed more margin in the mornings so that I could prepare different breakfasts. Of course, there were still some mornings that we needed to rely on that chocolate croissant, and I knew it was an enjoyed option.
[00:07:54] I could offer it alongside a cup of milk, buying a little bit more time at home where they could eat it and have a little bit more fueling of an option in the morning, and that was what it was. But that wasn't something that I could rely on consistently as a crutch and not expect it to have adverse outcomes.
[00:08:10] So I want you to ask yourself, What is a food that you recognize as a little bit of a crutch?
[00:08:15] What is something that you're leaning on, not as an aid in a certain season that has an appropriate application, but instead as a food that you're leaning on as a crutch because you're avoiding dealing with a problem.
[00:08:26] There are times where we do avoid dealing with a problem because it's just easier to lean on the crutch than have to carry the weight or to take the actions that are required to make a step forward or make an improvement in our family's feeding environment. But one of the first things is for you to begin identifying what foods are a crutch in your family and what foods may be perpetuating picky eating or poor nutrition for your child because they're being offered on repeat or excessively beyond a certain scenario or season that demands something like that option.
[00:08:59] I mentioned in my family the example of the chocolate croissant, but of course, that's just one of many examples.
[00:09:05] There could be other things like you send your child with a Z bar each and every day for snack. Do I have anything against Z Bars? No, not necessarily. But when I see families that are offering them each and every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, my concern does become that consistency of that product, that lack of variety, and that lack of variation in that food being offered is creating a crutch for the family. Because we're not seeing nutritional variety and we're seeing a propensity for picky eating to get worse because we're leaning on that food so much. Now, if you were to take a look in my pantry right now, you would see right now we do have Z bars.
[00:09:42] That's not every time. Just like right now, we don't have chocolate croissants, which isn't all the time. Some of these foods come and go so that we don't rely on them as a crutch. And that's one of the things I wanna encourage you to think through. Because whether it be the chocolate croissants that I get at Costco or the Z bars that I at time buy at Costco, I know for us as a family who shops at Costco or wholesale suppliers where we get larger packages, sometimes that's why we fall back to these crutches because we get 36 of 'em at a time and we don't even recognize, we use them as a crutch until we need number 37. And we realized we just burned through all of that snack off offering or that food option because our kids were wanting it each and every day. Or because we were leaning on it as a crutch so consistently that we burned through it and now we don't have that crutch there. And my question to you is, What do you do when that crutch isn't there?
[00:10:34] Because sometimes, it can be healthy for us to learn to stand without that crutch - ourselves as parents and also our kids. So I encourage you when those packages run out, if not before. Then, if you don't feel able before, while the chocolate croissants are still in the pantry, or the Z bars are still sitting in the snack drawer, it may be one where when they run out, You just push pause and you just recognize it's an opportunity to not replenish immediately. Then you and your child have to learn to stand without that crutch, that chocolate croissant, that Z bar, whatever that fill in the blank food may be for your family.
[00:11:11] So after you identify what that food might be, I want you to recognize what are some of the ways that you can learn to stand without that crutch. For me, I recognized with the chocolate croissant example, I needed to set boundaries about what, when and where food was offered so that it wasn't the expectation that that's what my daughter could grab on her way out the door each and every morning.
[00:11:31] Additionally, I recognized that because that package came in smaller packages, I could put half of them out so my daughter realized, there's half of these here, but once they're gone, they're gone. And I'm not going to reintroduce that "could be a crutch" for another few weeks until we need that kind of a refill in here.
[00:11:50] As I had mentioned, there are days, meals, snacks, and moments where we all need a crutch myself, very much included. And it's important for us to know what those crutches are, so when we need it, we can look to them for that added support. However, if we only know how to stand, if we only know how to feed our family, if we only know how to offer a meal or a snack, relying on those crutches, it's going to become increasingly difficult to improve our child's eating habits and to expand the diet variety that they're willing to accept.
[00:12:21] This gets us to the final point that I want to mention. That's that sometimes the expression of using that as a crutch can be seen in a negative light. It can be seen as a state of perpetual laziness. However, if you've ever been on crutches, you know that there's a season you need them.
[00:12:36] However, there's also a season where you're doing yourself more harm than good if you continue to use them. I know when I had broken my femur and I was using crutches, there was a season where I was non-weightbearing and I had to lean on those crutches. However, there was also a season where I needed to de begin developing strength again. My leg had tremendous muscle atrophy, and it was going to take a lot of work to build up that strength again.
[00:13:02] But if I continued to lean on and use those crutches, my leg wouldn't have been able to develop the strength starting from a very, very weak point. But if I had used them too long, it would've perpetuated laziness.
[00:13:16] It would've prevented growth.
[00:13:20] It would've thwarted the strength that I needed to cultivate.
[00:13:24] And I want this episode to be an impetus for you to recognize if you're in a season where you need to rely heavily on crutches -- that's okay.
[00:13:34] Identify what those crutches are now.
[00:13:36] However, I also want you to begin to recognize and identify and as able implement what your action plan is going to be to wean yourself off those crutches.
[00:13:46] Because when the time comes for the season to pass and life to heal in a way where you can begin taking action and using the skills, the strategies, and the systems that you know will help promote a healthier foundation for feeding in your family, then you need to begin doing so.
[00:14:10] So identify what those crutches are; identify what that action plan is going to be as you are able to wean that given crutch; And make sure that you're not perpetuating a season of using those crutches longer than necessary.
[00:14:25] Because if we're not in tune with when it's serving our family and offering support for our family, and when it's robbing us of strength and opportunity to grow and improve our family's eating habits, we can continue to perpetuate some of the picky eating that we already know is an area of opportunity for our family to address.
[00:14:46] So I hope that you will leave this episode identifying what your crutches and identifying a new way to go about offering that. Not because it can't have any place, but because it needs to have an allocated, intentional place and space in your family in order to be used effectively and to improve your child's overall nutrition.
[00:15:04] If going into summer, this is something that you want help with and you feel like the crutches that your family learned to lean on a lot during the school year is something that you're going to struggle to know how to transition off of, I want you to go to veggiesandvirtue.com/workwithme.
[00:15:19] That's gonna give you the opportunity to get a spot on my calendar. I offer free 30 minute sessions where we can look at some of the challenges and issues that your family is facing, and we can identify an action plan so that in the coming weeks and months over summer, you know exactly what your crutches are and how you can begin to wean off them effectively.
[00:15:39] Not so that you fall on your face and don't have the strength to do what's needed, but so that you and your child and your family as a whole can be really successful in implementing these baby steps to regain strength and incorporate added variety in your feeding environment while still having an ample support system of foods that offer crutches in the seasons that you need the most.