If you aren't labelling food 'good' or 'bad'...

[Curiosityaintgotmeyet]

How do you encourage a determined child to eat fruit and veg?

I’m talking about plain, visible options like carrots, cucumbers, apples, and bananas—not hidden in sauces or smoothies!

If this has never been a challenge for you or isn’t a route you’re taking, feel free to scroll on and have a lovely day. 😊

My 3.5-year-old is incredibly strong-willed. Since weaning, I’ve struggled to get her to eat 99% of fruits and vegetables. We’ve taken a “food is food” approach, avoiding labels like “good” or “bad,” and focused on gently teaching about balance—what different foods do for our bodies, why variety matters, and how sugar gives energy but isn’t enough on its own. (It’s been educational for me too! See the v basic/simplified image below) This worked brilliantly with my eldest, but my youngest simply will not budge.

I’ve tried a range of techniques over the years (playing, explaining, reoffering the same meal next time she's hungry, removing the other snacks so that only fruit and veg is available), but nothing seems to make a difference. I’ve even reluctantly tested the “no veg, no dessert” method out of desperation—it didn’t work. She’s skipped multiple meals and the snacks in between, holding out until milk at bedtime, and while it’s clear no harm came of it, it didn’t feel right. Honestly, I kind of admire her grit, but it’s exhausting.

She does get fruit and veg in hidden forms, like pasta sauces and smoothies, so I know she’s covered nutritionally. But my question is: how do you get a child to willingly eat visible fruits and vegetables? Ideally, without bribery, threats, or force—I want her to understand balance and long term develop a positive relationship with food. Playing the long game here.

My husband has (jokingly) reached the point of 'maybe we should just keep offering but not forcing the issue and if she's unhealthy when she's older we'll explain that she was too strong-willed for us and has brought it on herself. I mean if she was 15 I'd probably agree, but she's 3...surely this is just part of the parenting package?

Any advice or tried-and-tested ideas would be hugely appreciated!

Read Getting The Little Blighters to Eat.

Excellent short book for this age.

I can see why you don't want to demonise junk food/make it exciting by calling it 'bad'.... but what's wrong with 'good'? My kids know that fruit veg and fish are particularly good for you. I rarely have junk food in the house, definitely not a constant supply, and have a fruit bowl accessible that they can help themselves to. I comment on how juicy an apple is or that 'these pears/tangerines are especially nice' but keep it low key and just try and offer different things. I think the rainbow is a bit odd to be honest: over elaborate and over simplified at the same time!

There's a short answer and a long answer.

The short answer is you can't. Children choose for themselves (out of what you provide) what they eat and you have limited powers of persuasion.

The long answer is that this is an extremely long game and you are only at the beginning of it.

I was extremely fussy as a child and one of my children was also extremely fussy,

Things you can do:
Keep offering a (very) wide variety of fruit and veg
Feed them a multivitamin
Encourage them to choose a piece of fruit or veg to try at the supermarket (we used to pretend we were doing market research and mark it out of 10)
Get them involved with cooking (but young for this one).

It takes months if not years to see results of these strategies.

A kid who is happy to skip meals and isn't bothered about hunger can control what they eat. You need to work on persuading them it's fun and the fruit and veg taste nice.

As someone who was a fussy child, nothing would convince me to eat something I didn’t want to eat. Being told it was healthy vs unhealthy wouldn’t have made a difference, and nor did spending cumulative hours of my life staring at the sandwiches I didn’t want to eat while being reminded I was missing playtime or I’d get a reward if I ate them. Offering without forcing the issue is probably the best way to handle it without damaging her relationship with food.

At 3.5 you really don’t need to push it, and the more you make this a battleground, the harder she will resist. Kids have all the time and energy in the world for fights like this. Let it go. She’ll get there in her own time if she has more choice and autonomy.

Do you know what your DC’s experiences & preferences are? Does she particularly dislike certain tastes and textures and smells? Can you take these preferences seriously and accommodate them?

I was a very picky child, and this pickiness was extended long beyond what it would naturally have been by endless power struggles with my parents about what I had to eat to be ‘healthy’. I still managed to grow up perfectly healthy, with a normal bmi and balanced eating habits as an adult.

My 8 year old DS has ARFID, and taking all the stress and expectation off of mealtimes has led to his eventually asking for new foods and eating a greater variety - often after seeing other kids eating things that pique his interest. When he was 3 he wouldn’t even eat ‘hidden’ veggies, so you are already doing well here.

I offer a healthy diet, and they can eat what they want. We don't have junk food in the house, and I cook healthy meals from scratch with veg in the sauces etc (DH has an anaphylactic allergy that means cooking from scratch is generally necessary as he can't eat a lot of pre-prepared stuff) so even if they don't eat their broccoli it's not the end of the world. We have various vegetables with every meal but I don't force it. I give them a multi vitamin, they seem healthy enough (they're 2 and 5).

I was a very fussy child and it caused my mother so much stress trying to get me to eat and nothing was ever going to work. No amount of reasoning, bribery, blackmail, punishments, or getting involved in cooking was ever going to make me eat what I didn't want to. Meal times became such an unbelievable source of stress for me that at 8 or 9 I just stopped eating and lost a considerable amount of weight, and I don't have the best relationship with food now. My parents were rather extreme with their methods and I'm not suggesting you will end up making your child not eat at all, I'm just explain why I take a more relaxed approach.

No experience with kids but a healthy lifestyle plan I followed said no foods good or bad but some foods are ‘everyday’ foods and some foods are ‘sometimes’ foods as some make your body feel better. I liked that idea.

Tbh that all sounds very stressful and making a huge deal out of food

I wasnt on here when my children were younger so wasn't really aware that this kind of approach was a thing, I made meals, put bowls on the table and they helped themselves to what they wanted mirroring the way I was brought up. Food was never a battlefield, vegetables weren't enemies to be disguised and no labels were attached

It probably sounds old fashioned but I had children close in age and worked full time, they wasn't capacity in my life for angst over meals and all involved are fine and healthy

Did you take any notice of what they were eating at all? Don't mean that in an accusational way, it sounds very freeing! I'm trying extremely hard not to make it a battlefield, really want her to have a healthier relationship with food than most people I know, but if left to her own devises she will eat bread and cream cheese, porridge and pasta exclusively. It's been like that for at least 2 years.

We tried about a month of doing help yourself dinners, where all the elements were on the table and you could make up your own plate (which I think is what you mean with the bowl) and she ate cheese or cream cheese on some sort of bread/wrap/bagel/potato every.single.day.

I love the title!!

Explain it simply but truthfully - as in the picture you've added

Sugary food gives you energy, but it can damage you teeth, and too much can make you unwell.
Broccoli will make you grow strong.
Yellow pepper will help you not to catch colds etc

I'm in no way an expert, but I think the understanding is if there's a good there must be a bad.

Sounds like you have my child. She used to eat everything and anything until a few months ago. Now playschool lunch are an absolute nightmare. I'm trying not to stress about it. Will be following this thread.

This is really helpful, thank you!!

She just helped me make a smoothie. We put spinach, celery and beets in it along with blueberries, mango and banana. She wouldn't eat a single one of those whole, but blended with greek yogurt and oj and she declared it delicious. So trying not to include her as much as possible, and keeping it upbeat rather than being a battle (I really don't like battles, they're way too exhausting).

Am gonna try the supermarket thing for sure.

I like that way of wording it, thanks for sharing!

Thanks, that's reassuring that not going down the route of bribes and forcing the issue is the right one. I hated being forced to eat stuff as a kid, most of the things I disliked when small I still dislike, so feels valid to me that you're allowed not to like things. Just would be great if the 'things' she didn't eat didn't feel like everything in the world 😂

Mine are adults now but I never made food a battle.
Meals were always at the table and always
"Help yourself "
I never put food on their plates without them asking.
Fruit was the only snack they could help themselves to.
We never had crap in the house.
They survived and ate reasonably well

Not necessarily. Everything else is OK/just fuel, a few things are especially good and are both delicious and make you stronger and healthier.
Just like the concept of superheroes doesn't mean humans are a bit shit!

I think the fact she's eating plain/carby with cheese is actually OK and you should give yourself permission to relax. The fruit bowl is a treat for you and just setting a good example for the future.

The best thing my mum bought me as a new mum was a motherhood book from about 1910! Just to make the point that exact parenting advice changes and you should probably just chill a bit. It's all carbs, milk and bone broth! Quite eye opening.

To be fair the eating hidden stuff is relatively new, last 3-4 months. But yes, very pleased about that! Pretty much our entire meal plan is shaped around her preferences as we were trying to avoid having different meals at the table, but it's so restrictive for the rest of us. Doesn't feel like it's working. Wouldn't want there to be a detriment to DS trying new things as a result.

I've been letting it go a lot, but seeing how little progress we've made has got me wondering if that's the right mentality. Especially when I have one kid who says 'I don't think I like this mum, but I'm going to try it because that's what we do!' and then the other who ate something yesterday but today won't even sniff it. This thread has been reassuring.

Her preferences seem to be cream cheese and bread (consistent) but otherwise change with the wind. She declared that she loved blueberries last week after trying them at a party, so we bought some (they're blooming expensive I learned!) and got a 'Ugh! these are yukky!', didn't even eat one. But they turned the smoothie a nice colour which she enjoyed, and she happily drunk that.

Sounds like you had to have incredible levels of patience, hats off to you.

Well, that's a win!
I also rate the Gruffalo cookbook- really simple and fun, my kids loved the 'poisonous warts'... mini frittatas with feta and peas in.

That's an excellent point.

Had a friend in the 80's who would only eat grated carrot or orange slices as long as either one was covered in sugar. He runs marathons these days. Long game!

Dont.

Just offer a whole range of variety, different colours, textures, tastes, temperatures and smells and over the long term you'll hopefully develop an interest in all foods. If they dont want it right now, its fine

No harm will come at this stage, as long as theres enough fibre and vitamins and minerals going in another way, you're ok

I had a fruit and veg refuser, loved them as a baby the tastebud change in toddlerhood hit and nothing. I tried everything, growing it, picking it, games, fun (never did sanctions always felt counterproductive)

we are just coming out of it

she’s 16

Ah it's a great book isn't it!!

Both mine love helping in the kitchen, but then when it comes to the moment the warts are in front of them at the table the plate is pushed away and I get a 'no thank you!'. My fave was with my son, who isn't a big pasta fan and went through the standard 'green things are gross' stage. We picked some wild garlic en route home once for green pesto pasta. He helped me pick the leaves and we spoke about the smell and the colour and what we'd do with them. Then together we cooked the pasta, and some broccoli. Blended it together with spinach, pine nuts and the wild garlic. Mixed it into the pasta again talking about the colour and the smell and all the rest. Served it up with cheese and he then says 'But mummy I don't like green food, or pasta!' 😂 Was worth a go!!

DS2 had ARFID. Getting him to eat anything, let alone healthy food was a 10-year battle. What helped:

1. Explain the basics - complex carbs give you energy, protein makes you strong, veggies and fruit keep you healthy, so you need all three every day.
2. Put out small bowls and ask them to choose something from each category. Just stop caring if this means they have weetabix, sliced pear and humous for tea instead of your lovingly prepared nutritious hot meal.
3. If they 'hate' a veg, reintroduce it under a different name. We used US names for veg when we reintroduced them. They hated peppers and courgettes but they liked capsicum and zucchini. Hated salmon but loved pink fish.
4. If they like something, introduce something similar under the same name. They ate white fish and pork thinking they were chicken.
5. Introduce tiny amounts of veg disguised in food they eat - half an onion, a slice of fennel, and one cube of frozen spinach, cooked, pureed and stirred into burger meat is pretty unnoticeable, then slowly build up the ratio of veg to meat.