‘Picky Eating’: Are You Meeting Your Child’s Basic Needs?

Earlier this year, colleagues and I published a paper in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. In it, we set out a way of looking at feeding children which I believe is really useful for both parents and professionals. The article was a collaboration with leading ‘picky eating’ expert, Dr Katja Rowell, and academic Dr Gianina-Ioana Postavaru (of Bishop Grosseteste University, UK).

It can be really difficult for parents to access the full text of journal articles – and quite honestly, not everyone has the time or the inclination to plough through pages of academic writing – so I want to share the main ideas in our paper with you here.

The theoretical background

We draw on a psychological theory that has been researched for a long time, called Self-determination Theory (SDT)*. SDT is complex and wide-ranging, but the element of it that we used claims that there are three basic needs that need to be met in order for psychological growth to occur. This has been researched in lots of different areas, such as education, sport and the workplace.

The three basic needs are: autonomy, relatedness and competence. I will explain each of these in turn but will be writing a series of articles over the coming months where I’ll look at each need in more detail. In the paper, we argue that SDT applies to feeding children just as it applies to all these other areas. We believe that thinking about the three needs gives parents and professionals a powerful way of supporting a positive relationship with food in children, whether there are eating problems or not.

The three needs

Here are definitions of the three needs, drawing on a recent white paper about Responsive Feeding Therapy (Rowell, Wong, Cormack & Moreland, 2020).

Autonomy pertains to agency and respect for personal space and bodily integrity, enabling a person to be in control of their own actions

Relatedness refers to warm and attuned interpersonal connections

Competence means the individual’s perceived (as opposed to objectively assessed) sense of having sufficient skills to manage a situation

In plain English:

• If we feel autonomous, we feel in control and free to make our own choices about our actions
• If we feel related, we have a sense of connectedness and belonging. 
• If we feel competent we feel that we are capable of carrying out the task in front of us; it’s neither too easy nor too difficult

The three needs and ‘picky’ or ‘fussy’ eating

If you are a parent thinking about autonomy, you may want to ask yourself: is my child able to say “no”? Are they making their own eating decisions? Are they being pressured to try foods they are not comfortable with or eat things they are not ready to eat? Moving away from a pressureful approach to feeding requires a major mindset shift – understanding that your child’s autonomy is a fundamental need to be met, can really help with this.

I invite you to consider relatedness as a central concern when you’re feeding your child. Are you eating with them? Is the mealtime stressful and full of conflict or battles or is it focused on enjoying time with one another? Is your warmth towards your child unconditional or is it dependent on how they are eating? Is there tension between you and your partner around how to handle your child’s eating?

Competence is a complex need because it’s about how competent your child feels rather than anything measurable. Do they feel worried and out of their depth at mealtimes because they are expected to eat or interact with foods that are too difficult for them? Do they feel under-challenged because they are repeatedly served things that are below their developmental level? Are you exposing them to new foods so they can learn and grow, in a pressure-free way?

The three needs together

As I’m sure you can see, the three needs are overlapping and interconnected; many situations impact autonomy, relatedness and competence all at once. For example, if you are cooking with your child, you may insist that they touch the dough although they don’t like how it feels – this would have a negative impact on the chances of all three of the needs being met.

Imagine, however, that you bake the cookies together and give them to Grandma rather than expecting that your child tries them. This respects autonomy (your child chose not to take a bite) fosters relatedness (your child gives Grandma a gift and has a lovely time in the kitchen with you) and builds competence (your child got familiar with the look and smell of cookie ingredients, and feels proud of what they created).

Next time you are in a stressful or difficult situation in relation to feeding your child, go through the three needs in your head and evaluate whether they are all being met. If they are not, think about what changes you may need to make to address this.

Look out for my next posts where I’ll get into each need in more depth. You can sign up for my mailing list here if you don’t want to miss them.

 

 

* Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.