Picky Eater? Why Your Parenting Style Didn't Cause It | Katie Kimball

Well, when I talk about picky eating, I talk about the five Ps of picky eating: palate, pain, pressure, power...

Or, sorry.

Palate, pain, processing, pressure, and power.

And so those first three are physiological presentations, and this is where parents, a lot of times we don't understand where to look.

We don't understand how to tell, how to seek patterns in what our children are doing at the table and, or even to think, like, maybe it's not about the food, right? Like, that's the title of my TEDx Talk, Picky Eating Is Not About the Food.

And I think, I think that is a curiosity opener, is why it's been viewed over 300,000 times, because people are like, "That doesn't make any sense.

How can picky eating not be about the food? How could it not be about the parenting?" Because sometimes it's physiological.

And so we've got children who are struggling.

When I say palate, it's in the mouth.

Their tongue might be too weak.

Their chew might be inappropriate, not strong enough.

Their jaw might be too weak.

The way that they swallow has formed differently.

Is this part of our modern world? Yeah, a little bit, because we're giving kids all, babies, all sorts of things to put in their mouths that we didn't give them 100 years ago, right? We've got these food pouches that change the way the mouth receives food.

And if you think about a, a baby who's maybe receiving a lot of food through these food pouches, they're continuing the sucking motion- Into toddlerhood that really belongs in babydom, right? And they're not chewing.

They're probably on purees a lot longer than they ought to be, and so the shape of the mouth is actually changing.

We know we have a lot of kids who are mouth-breathing, and so that raises the palate.

It just changes the way kids are able to chew and swallow.

So I'm thinking of one family I worked with.

The six-year-old girl would hold food in her mouth, right? So she would eat the, she'd eat the food, she'd chew it, and then she would just, like, push it against the roof of her mouth.

And of course, the parents are like, "This is so annoying.

Just swallow," right? You're seeing it as, as, like, a bratty, stubborn, subversive behavior.

She just had a weak tongue.

Her tongue couldn't sweep the food easily to the back of the mouth to swallow.

Isn't that wild? We think it's about the food.

Well, when I talk about picky eating, I talk about the five Ps of picky eating: palate, pain, pressure, power...

Or, sorry.

Palate, pain, processing, pressure, and power.

And so those first three are physiological presentations, and this is where parents, a lot of times we don't understand where to look.

We don't understand how to tell, how to seek patterns in what our children are doing at the table and, or even to think, like, maybe it's not about the food, right? Like, that's the title of my TEDx Talk, Picky Eating Is Not About the Food.

And I think, I think that is a curiosity opener, is why it's been viewed over 300,000 times, because people are like, "That doesn't make any sense.

How can picky eating not be about the food? How could it not be about the parenting?" Because sometimes it's physiological.

And so we've got children who are struggling.

When I say palate, it's in the mouth.

Their tongue might be too weak.

Their chew might be inappropriate, not strong enough.

Their jaw might be too weak.

The way that they swallow has formed differently.

Is this part of our modern world? Yeah, a little bit, because we're giving kids all, babies, all sorts of things to put in their mouths that we didn't give them 100 years ago, right? We've got these food pouches that change the way the mouth receives food.

And if you think about a, a baby who's maybe receiving a lot of food through these food pouches, they're continuing the sucking motion- Into toddlerhood that really belongs in babydom, right? And they're not chewing.

They're probably on purees a lot longer than they ought to be, and so the shape of the mouth is actually changing.

We know we have a lot of kids who are mouth-breathing, and so that raises the palate.

It just changes the way kids are able to chew and swallow.

So I'm thinking of one family I worked with.

The six-year-old girl would hold food in her mouth, right? So she would eat the, she'd eat the food, she'd chew it, and then she would just, like, push it against the roof of her mouth.

And of course, the parents are like, "This is so annoying.

Just swallow," right? You're seeing it as, as, like, a bratty, stubborn, subversive behavior.

She just had a weak tongue.

Her tongue couldn't sweep the food easily to the back of the mouth to swallow.

Isn't that wild? We think it's about the food.