• Home
    • Jo Cormack
    • War & Peas - Buy the book
    • Testimonials & press
    • Feeding consultancy
    • Book a consultation
    • Counselling
  • Blog
    • Yoyo Kitemark for schools
    • Staff training
    • Training for parents
    • Training for professionals
  • Events
  • Contact
Menu

EAF  - solving picky eating

solving picky eating
  • Home
  • About
    • Jo Cormack
  • Books
    • War & Peas - Buy the book
    • Testimonials & press
  • Consultancy
    • Feeding consultancy
    • Book a consultation
    • Counselling
  • Blog
  • Schools
    • Yoyo Kitemark for schools
    • Staff training
  • Training
    • Training for parents
    • Training for professionals
  • Events
  • Contact
Essential Reading
How to get your child to eat their veggies
Sep 19, 2017
How to get your child to eat their veggies
Sep 19, 2017
Sep 19, 2017
Progress, not perfection...
Jan 3, 2017
Progress, not perfection...
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017
Making the grown-ups happy
Dec 1, 2016
Making the grown-ups happy
Dec 1, 2016
Dec 1, 2016
Picky eating and temperament
Nov 13, 2016
Picky eating and temperament
Nov 13, 2016
Nov 13, 2016
Grazing part 2: "The Kitchen is Closed!"
Sep 29, 2016
Grazing part 2: "The Kitchen is Closed!"
Sep 29, 2016
Sep 29, 2016
Picky eating: a single parent's guide
Sep 20, 2016
Picky eating: a single parent's guide
Sep 20, 2016
Sep 20, 2016
"Help! My two year old won't sit at the table"
Aug 14, 2016
"Help! My two year old won't sit at the table"
Aug 14, 2016
Aug 14, 2016
The social benefits of meals 'Family Style'
Aug 8, 2016
The social benefits of meals 'Family Style'
Aug 8, 2016
Aug 8, 2016
The Golden Twenty Minutes: pre-meal preparation for your picky eater
Jul 18, 2016
The Golden Twenty Minutes: pre-meal preparation for your picky eater
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016
How to help your picky eater when you've run out of ideas.
Jun 24, 2016
How to help your picky eater when you've run out of ideas.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016
bigstock-Toddler-Takes-Slice-Of-Tomato-47887115
bigstock-Toddler-Takes-Slice-Of-Tomato-47887115

Annabel Karmel gets to grips with the kid's menu...

November 16, 2013

Annabel Karmel  has recently been working with chef Theo Randall to devise a new children's menu for the InterContinental hotel chain.  On her blog, she writes " we’ve created a menu filled with diverse flavours, textures, smells and tastes that will take children on an educational voyage around the world while ensuring an enjoyable and nutritionally balanced meal" Knowing Annabel Karmel's work, I expect the recipes are imaginative and are a big departure from the ubiquitous chicken  nuggets  or spaghetti bolognese that feature on children's menus across the land. This has to be a good thing. A menu that introduces children to new tastes and different cuisines sounds brilliant. 

But I have a question. Are children's menus perhaps a flawed concept? What is intrinsically wrong with serving children the same food as adults? The only answer I can come up with is that the portion size would be inappropriate, and that is easily remedied. What message does a separate children's menu give to a child? It tells her that there are some foods that are 'for grown ups' and some foods that are 'for children'.

Modelling

A really important part of EAF is about 'modelling'. Modelling is the idea that how your child sees you behaving has a huge influence on how she behaves, much more so that what you say to her. This is where " do as I say, not as I do "falls down...  When it comes to picky eating,  research shows that a child is much more likely to eat a food that she has first seen her parents eating 1. It seems to me that giving children separate menus takes away opportunities for modelling.

I would like to see restaurants, pubs and cafes offering  their smaller customers appropriately sized portions of the same menu as the grown ups...  Then the focus can be on enjoying a meal out as a family, rather than on 'getting the children to eat something ', whether that's through special menus,  food that arrives in  brightly coloured cardboard boxes or the like.

What does anyone else think? I'd be really interested to hear people's opinions on this one.

1 B. Carruth & J. Skinner (2000) Revisiting the Picky Eater Phenomenon: Neophobic Behaviors of Young Children, Journal of the American College of Nutritionists,  Vol. 19, No. 6, pp. 771-780

In Essential Reading, The kids' menu
← Reward charts for picky eaters? Putting the fun into food? →

Categories

  • Allergies
  • Anxiety
  • Appetite
  • Attention
  • Blame
  • Book reviews
  • Chewing
  • Child development
  • Children cooking
  • Dessert
  • Dieting
  • Dining seats
  • DoR
  • EAF principles
  • Essential Reading
  • Essential viewing
  • Exposure
  • Family meals
  • Food education
  • Food presentation
  • Genetics
  • Getting help
  • Guest post
  • Hiding veg
  • Interviews
  • Leaving food
  • Making a change
  • Meal Planning
  • Meal schedules
  • Mealtime emotions
  • Mess
  • Mindful Eating
  • Modelling
  • Obesity
  • Open cup drinking
  • Oral motor skills
  • Picky eating 'products'
  • Praise and eating
  • Pregnancy
  • Readers' questions
  • Research
  • School or daycare
  • Schools and daycare
  • Second helpings
  • Self-regulation
  • Sensory processing
  • Serve everyone everything
  • Serving 'Family Style'
  • Snacks
  • Strategies

©JO CORMACK