They shout. They stamp their feet. They beg, bargain and plead. No, we’re not talking about toddlers here, we’re talking about their parents, more specifically, parents of fussy eaters.If you’re a parent who’s ever been driven to despair because your child won’t eat anything that is the colour green, or your child once had a meltdown in a busy restaurant because the thoughtless waiter put a pat of butter on the requested plain pasta, take heart, you’re not alone. According to the website Copperwiki, around half of all toddlers refuse to eat a new food at least half of the time.Many parents fork out money on a variety of cookbooks aimed at the picky eater. Some cookbooks recommend you puree spinach and broccoli and hide it in a brownie, others recommend you make art out of your food to better entice your child to eat it.I have a very fussy eater at home. In my experience no matter how tricky you are, they are always one step ahead of you. When my daughter was a year old I would puree spinach and hide it in her strawberry yogurt. Once she caught on she simply refused to eat anything with “bits in it”. So then I had a bigger problem on my hands a very suspicious toddler. Over the weekend a friend of mine called and said my daughter, who was with her, just ate four carrot sticks with ranch dressing. This was earth-shattering news worthy of CNN. Newsflash child just ate carrot stick. Later, back with me, my daughter gave me an evil grin. “Mummy I didn’t eat the carrot stick, I just sucked the sauce off.”Experts have suggested that picky eating isn’t so much about what the child likes to eat, as about the child having control of the situation. What goes into their mouth is about the only thing that the average toddler has complete control over.Liz Boden of the Nurses Practice, which offers baby and parenting classes to many parents on the Island, has a radical approach to dinner-time battles: relax!“Mealtimes should be happy times, not battle times,” said nurse Boden. She has two grown children of her own plus twin 18-month-old granddaughters. She said that while one of her children would eat anything, her other child is a fussy eater to this day.“I think fussy eaters are born that way and often made worse by fussy parents fussing,” she said. “Some anxious parents try to force children to eat items such as vegetables to ensure they get a balanced diet. Some have unrealistic expectations about quantities of food that a toddler needs.”In a 2008 interview with the New York Times, T Berry Brazleton, baby guru and author of many parenting books such as ‘Feeding Your Child the Brazleton Way’ told parents to “forget about vegetables”. Dr Brazleton, who is now in his 90s, recalled how as a child vegetables were a constant battle in his family.“So every time I am asked about young children and vegetables (and in the course of 50 years of practice, I have discovered that my mother was not the only mother who cared so deeply about vegetables), I tell mothers, and grandmothers, ‘Forget about vegetables’. They turn pale. Open their eyes wide. Feel faint. I offer them a seat, and repeat, ‘Forget about vegetables’.”He recommended that parents back off. He said that fussy eating was quite normal, particularly between the ages of two and three years old, when young children are just starting to establish an identity separate from their parents.“Really,” Dr Brazleton said in the interview with The New York Times. “You can cover them with a multivitamin during this temporary period usually between two and three years old when any battle over food will backfire into even worse nutrition. They’ll make it through this with enough milk, meat, eggs, grains and fruit.”Mrs Boden recommended that parents make mealtimes as pleasurable as possible. What children want the most is their parent’s time and attention.“Eat together whenever you can and always sit down with your child while they eat,” she said. “Never multitask while trying to feed your young child. No talking on the phone or unloading the dishwasher… it’s bad manners and the lively toddler will jump at the opportunity to seek attention by not eating.”She also suggested that parents give small children small portions. Sometimes children are put off by what they perceive as a lot of food on their plate.“Babies eat a lot and toddlers don’t,” she said. “Accept that. It is a developmental stage. Just wait until you have a teenager in the house, especially the boys, they never seem to stop eating. Make sure your toddler is not getting too much milk. By one-year-old they should be off the bottle as this is not only bad for their teeth but also encourages a large intake of milk as they like the comfort measure of sucking the nipple. This will mean they are never really hungry and don’t want any food. Three cups of milk a day is sufficient in the second year.”Mrs Boden also suggested that children get some exercise during the day to work up a good appetite and that parents try to limit the snacking before mealtimes.“I don’t think you need more cookbooks,” she said. “New recipes and new food just equals new tension for the child. Do hide vegetables in spaghetti sauce. Toddlers usually love pasta and shepherd’s pie is an all-time favourite.”And she said there was no harm in having a little fun with a child’s food, such as using cookie cutters to liven up sandwiches.“I am not sure you should become an artistic designer as you arrange food on the plate to look like faces and battleships as one popular cookbook author suggests,” she said. “I love her cookbook, but the one for fussy eaters needs a patient parent with plenty of artistic ability and time. I think this just raises the tension and attention seeking and gives you a whole lot more work.”According to Copperwiki.com , if a child who is picky about food is growing reasonably well and has a normal weight, parents have no cause for health concern. Here are some points to bear in mind:l Most fussy eaters emerge from this stage at their own pace, particularly if their closest role models have healthy eating habits for them to emulatel A child may be slim, healthy and growing well which is fine, another child may be overweight, appears to eat little and may need their diet and physical activity reviewedl A healthy child will never starve himself to death by refusing to eat foodl Consult a health care professional if a child is underweight and doesn’t appear to be growing well.Useful websites: www.copperwiki.org/index.php?title=Coping_with_fussy_eaters; well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/dr-brazeltons-advice-on-childhood-nutrition/