Stephanie Elliot?s daughter, McKaelen, was always finicky about food. As a toddler, she subsisted on a diet of dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, French fries, peanut butter sandwiches, peeled apples, cake and pizza (with the cheese and sauce scraped off). McKaelen?s two brothers, one older and one younger, would eat anything, so Elliot just figured her daughter would eventually accept new foods into the mix?like most toddlers and preschoolers eventually do?after the worst of the fussy phase was over.
Instead of outgrowing it as her palate matured, however, McKaelen?s aversion to food got worse, with a strict list of only 10 acceptable items in her rotation.
?It was starting to become a real problem?she was physically repulsed by new foods,? says Elliot. Her daughter would gag at the sight of meat and vegetables, and wouldn?t eat what the rest of the family was having. ?If we ever wanted to go out to dinner, we could only pick a place that had French fries or pizza,? adds Elliot.
She remembers trying to sneak bananas into her daughter?s pancakes, but McKaelen could tell they weren?t quite ?right? and refused to eat them. Another time McKaelen was curious about eggs, but she took one bite and spat it out.
?I sometimes worried that she didn?t have enough protein or vitamins, so I would try to push protein whenever I could?by offering her peanut butter or even milk,? says Elliot. ?But I was pretty good about not forcing her to eat things, because I knew how stressful it was for ...