Wondering what to do about picky eaters and how to feed them can be one of the most exhausting parenting challenges. We’re responsible for feeding our kids at least three times every day (or so we’d hope), and three daily battles is three too many. When you’re ready to stop the madness, these 4 parenting books can be amazingly helpful, and hopefully one is right for you. My hope is that they help you get your child to eat what’s on the table–or at least end the power struggles when he won’t. All are available through our affiliate Amazon, or local indie booksellers everywhere.
My favorite book on this topic is The Picky Eating Solution by Deborah Kennedy thanks in part to an easy-to-follow format. Answer some questions, get a score, then skip to the section relevant to you. This is not heavy duty reading (thank goodness), but rather a practical guide to identifying your child’s eating personality and honing in on the tactics most likely to work to address them.
Fearless Feeding: How to Raise Healthy Eaters from High Chair to High School by Jill Castle and Maryann Jacobson is another great resource for coping with picky eaters. More comprehensive than The Picky Eating Solution, this book provides tons of nutritional information to help you make better decisions yourself, and offers advice that spans into the teen years. As you might have figured from the title. If you’re interested in understanding how your child’s eating habits correspond to his stage of development, you’ll reach for this book over and over throughout the years.
If, like me, you’ve already read a bunch of books on encouraging your finicky kids to eat better, there’s probably not much new for you in Getting to Yum: The 7 Secrets of Raising Eager Eaters by Karen LeBillion. That said, this recently published book is well written and draws on up-to-date research, which goes a long way wen you’re wondering what the heck to do about picky eaters with palates that ranges from A to B. It helps that Karen,whose name you might recognize as the author of the popular French Kids Eat Everything, is a mom herself. This book is all about “taste training,” and covers seven strategies for approaching picky eating with a game plan for implementation each. She also includes 85 great recipes which I consider a bonus.
Unlike the other books on this list, Suffering Succotash: A Picky Eater’s Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic is not about strategies, solutions, or promises of transformation. It’s a thoughtful, candid, often humorous look at the science behind picky eating, which is pretty fascinating to those of us struggling with it. Written by a former picky eater turned culinary school graduate, cheesemonger and food writer (how’s that for transformation!), this book isn’t about changing your picky eater, as much as it is about understanding her. And, if you ask me, that may be half the battle. Besides, endorsements that range from the likes of Amanda Hesser of Food 52 to the Go Fug Yourself girls kind of sells me right off the bat.
