Fortified breakfast cereal is basically a multivitamin: 3 steps to start addressing nutrition concerns during the onset of picky eating in children
A love note to breakfast cereal and all the other fortified foods out there.
There comes a time for most parents, usually when their child is somewhere around 18 months old, when their vegetable-loving, I-will-eat-everything-in-front-of-me-including-this-dead-bug infant transforms into a toddler who would definitely rather eat a dead bug than that piece of roasted broccoli you put in front of them.
The onset of “picky” eating, despite being a predictable and natural part of child development, can be a challenging time for parents to navigate.
It can introduce new power struggles, particularly because a child who has a limited list of accepted foods can raise fears that the child may not be getting the nutrients they need.
For parents that are worried about their child developing a nutrient deficiency, I recommend walking through the 3 steps below as a way to start to address those concerns.
1. Get to the root of your concern: what nutrient deficiency are you worried about?
I totally understand the fear of nutrient deficiencies and/or just wanting the absolute best nutrition for your child; however, if you’re living in a food-secure household and regularly providing a variety of different kinds of foods for your child, it’s unlikely that they will develop a serious nutrient deficiency in the absence of other medical concerns.
Iron deficiency is the most common nutrient deficiency in children in the United States, but luckily, it’s a routine screening by your child’s pediatrician. If your child’s iron levels are low (as was this case for my son at one point), there are a lot of foods (conventional fortified breakfast cereals1 being perhaps the easiest to convince a child to consume) as well as supplements that can be discussed with a Registered Dietitian or pediatrician to bring their levels back up.
Try to be open to all kinds of sources of a nutrient. For example, you may wish your child would join you in eating salmon as a source of vitamin D, but perhaps fortified milk or juice is more appealing to them, or even a gummy vitamin, and that’s perfectly okay!
2. Cover your bases by building meals and snacks using multiple food groups when possible.
Rather than focusing on individual nutrients, focus on food groups instead: fruits, vegetables, grains, protein, and calcium-rich foods.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “Food groups simplify dietary recommendations by focusing on foods instead of nutrients. For example, it’s much easier to try to eat two cups of fruit a day than 75 milligrams of vitamin C and 25 grams of fiber.”
This might look like serving graham crackers with string cheese for a snack, or chicken nuggets with strawberries and roasted sweet potatoes for dinner.
While I recommend focusing on food groups first, if you’re curious about a specific nutrient, you can do a bit of research via the National Institutes of Health Consumer or Professional Fact Sheets to see what recommended levels are and what good food sources are.
3. Take a casual inventory of the foods your child generally eats. Reach out for help if the list seems very limited, or if your gut tells you something isn’t right.
I’ve heard (many times) parents say things like “My son/daughter only eats 5 foods!” only to find out upon making a list that the number is actually 50+ foods.
That’s why it can be helpful to take a casual inventory of all the kinds of foods your child eats. I would break it into food groups, and list everything that comes to mind. You may realize that the list is longer than you thought if you actually write it down.
Some children truly do have very limited numbers of accepted foods which can be a cause for concern.
Extreme picky eating can be defined as “not eating enough quantity or variety to support healthy emotional, physical, or social development; or eating patterns that are a significant source of conflict or worry.”2
Some signs include a child who:
Has a very limited number of accepted foods
Is often upset or cries around food
Has documented nutritional deficiencies
Is falling off their growth curve (and/or a diagnosis of failure to thrive)
Avoids social gatherings because of the food available
If you think this might describe your child, reach out to your pediatrician and/or Registered Dietitian for support. This book also contains extremely valuable information on the subject.
It can help to let your child pick the cereal that looks most exciting to them - even if that means it’s sometimes going to be Lucky Charms (the favorite in my household at the moment). One word of caution here is that some cereals - particularly the more expensive or organic ones like Whole Foods Organic Morning O’s - are often not fortified in the same way their conventional counterparts are. In this case, Whole Foods Organic Morning O’s have just 1.6 mg iron per serving, whereas Original Cheerios have 12.6 mg iron per serving. That’s a huge difference if you’re trying to increase your child’s iron intake!
Rowell, K., Mcglothlin, J., & Morris, S. E. (2015). Helping your child with extreme picky eating: a step-by-step guide for overcoming selective eating, food aversion, and feeding disorders. New Harbinger Publications.