Lizzy the Super Eater

In the past year, Lizzy's eating habits have transformed dramatically. Check out this plate. As she was heaping it high at dinner tonight, I was rather flabbergasted. Just a year ago, the only fruit or vegetable she would eat was jar peaches--as in babyfood. She was 6 years old and still eating babyfood because that was the only way we could get her to eat fruit. And she was equally picky about other foods. And now...



On her plate in this picture are the following things (we were having modified Hawaiian haystacks... we called them Utahn haystacks today):

Rice
Hard-boiled eggs
Zucchini
Shredded coconut
Cream of mushroom soup (as sauce on the rice)
Shredded cheddar cheese
Raw spinach greens (our favorite salad)
Chicken
Strawberries
Bananas

The only thing she protested about on this plate were the second strawberry slice and the second banana slice (crazy kid--she's still not crazy about fruit; she'll eat it, but she often complains. She eats vegetables very well though... go figure).

So how did it happen?

Well, a couple of years ago, we were painting various rooms in the house, and Lizzy and Christine got excited about painting Lizzy's room pink. But we set a condition. Before Lizzy could have a pink room, she had to learn to eat five fruits and five vegetables. We defined "learning to eat" as having eaten each one five times. So we made a fruit chart and a vegetable chart on which she could put stickers to track her progress.

She started strong and soon had three or four banana stickers but not much else. Then she fizzled, and the charts were ignored for months--probably almost a year. They even came down off the fridge for a while, and Christine bemoaned that we would never get to paint Lizzy's room, and I worried that Lizzy would be eating jar peaches when she was 16.

Then last spring Lizzy got motivated again. I'm not sure what made the change, but she got the charts out and started eating. It still required a bit of encouragement and urging on our part, but soon she had eaten five servings of five fruits or vegetables, so we painted half her room. And by sometime in the summer she had completed both charts--five servings of 10 fruits and vegetables--and she had a pink room.

Since then, we have simply continued encouraging. At first I thought we would be confined to those 10 fruits and vegetables, but she has broadened her repertoire pretty well. She has also become less picky about other foods. It has sometimes taken prodding, and it always takes a firm commitment to the rule that you don't get dessert unless you eat your fruits or vegetables.

We still sometimes have to insist and threaten, but usually these days she will dish it up and eat it down (see picture at right as evidence that tonight's meal was completely consumed... though there were tears at one point this evening when she didn't want to eat some of it. But we persevered through the tears and she had a smile to show for it at the end of the meal).