Most parents think picky eating starts in toddlerhood. But according to Jenny Best, founder of Solid Starts, the roots go much deeper and earlier.

In this Follow-Up episode, Jenny and I dig into the real reasons picky eating happens, what behaviors unknowingly contribute to it, and why feeding is so much more than just offering food. It’s emotional. It’s behavioral. It’s developmental. And yes—it’s totally fixable.

Together they discuss:

• Why gagging isn’t always a red flag (and how it helps build skills)

• The science behind chewing and why purees don’t teach it

• How spoon-feeding past a certain age can delay oral development

• Why how we feed is just as important as what we feed

• The sneaky role anxiety and pressure play at mealtimes

• What Jenny wishes more pediatricians (and parents) understood

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00;00;00;02 – 00;00;21;02

Dr. Mona

Welcome to the follow up. I’m Doctor Mona, pediatrician mom, and someone who’s absolutely not making five different dinners tonight. Okay. On these episodes, we revisit some of the most talked about conversations from the show. Today, we’re going back to one of my favorites, feeding. Because believe it or not, picky eating isn’t just about picky kids. It starts way earlier than most of us think.

 

00;00;21;04 – 00;00;40;16

Dr. Mona

I’m joined by Jenny Best, founder of Solid Starts, one of my dearest friends that I’ve made online who’s helping parents feel more confident about starting solids and preventing picky eating before it begins. In so many situations. We talk about how feeding is deeply behavioral, or how it ties into our parenting style, and why it’s a relationship, not a transaction.

 

00;00;40;19 – 00;00;58;26

Dr. Mona

So before you serve another beige meal or panic over a gag, take a breath and press play. And while you’re here, hit that follow button and subscribe so you never miss a dose of perspective or a chance to stop blaming the broccoli for why your kid doesn’t eat anything.

 

00;00;58;28 – 00;01;20;28

Dr. Mona

I do believe, and this is a loaded statement, but I do believe, truly from my practice, that a lot of feeding difficulties are facilitate by parents not knowing what they can do to help that behavior or stop that being. Yeah. And that includes forcing through. Right. That includes forcing. Yeah. Of course there’s texture issues. Of course there’s feeding mechanism issues.

 

00;01;20;28 – 00;01;24;22

Dr. Mona

We know that to be a reality, but we can’t deny that there is.

 

00;01;24;22 – 00;01;49;01

Jenny Best

That’s a small percentage of the overall. Yeah. No, I’m so glad you brought that up. Because, you know, we take heat time to time from talking about even the notion of being able to prevent picky eating. And one of the reasons I’m so passionate about it is because I discovered in the research, and there’s quite clear research on this, that there are distinct causes of picky eating.

 

00;01;49;05 – 00;02;17;19

Jenny Best

Yes, one of those is like medical issues, you know, severe allergies, celiac. If food is making your baby feel sick. That’s going to create a negative association with eating. Those are pretty like small percentages when you compare to the overall population. And yes, there’s neurodivergent issues and things like that might affect feeding at the table or even just childhood characteristics, like some kids are more open to change and exploration than others.

 

00;02;17;19 – 00;02;48;22

Jenny Best

But the reality is, even if you put all of those things together, that group is still a very small percentage. I would say probably less than eight 7% of the issues with picky eating. The other causes of picky eating are fascinating, and they’re almost all within our control as caregivers. So, you know, things like a very controlling, anxious parenting style, commanding a child eat a certain way at the table that’s going to create a negative association as well.

 

00;02;48;25 – 00;03;09;29

Jenny Best

On the other hand, an overly permissive style of parenting, the research is really strong there to, oh, you don’t want this dinner. Okay, let me go make you something else. Right. And it’s not to say you can never do those things are never go back to the kitchen. But it’s kind of like where the scale is tipping in your favor, right?

 

00;03;10;00 – 00;03;27;01

Jenny Best

You kind of want to aim for balance, I think, with all of these things. But yes, controlling parenting, anxious parenting, if you are bringing a lot of anxiety and fear to the table and you’re snatching the food out of the baby’s hand because you’re panicking, they’re going to mimic that emotion and even start to pick up and feel that emotion.

 

00;03;27;01 – 00;04;00;28

Jenny Best

And we don’t want our kids feeling afraid of food, or that food is scary in that way. So, you know, from negative mealtime experiences like force feeding or feeling pressure and even a six month old can feel even the hint of pressure at the table. We don’t think they can understand us, but they do. And then, you know, the other thing that really gets down to what you were talking about earlier with the guidance, you know, in your, study a discipline and from the American Academy of Pediatrics and so forth is a lack of exposure to chewable foods by a certain age.

 

00;04;01;01 – 00;04;18;03

Jenny Best

And this is hard to talk about because, you know, if you’re a parent here listening. And look, I spoon fed my child textualist food, literally squeeze the pouch on the spoon, okay? Don’t even let them hold the pouch. Squeeze the pouch under the spoon for more than 18 months. Okay, so, you know, I’ve been there. I’ve been there.

 

00;04;18;03 – 00;04;36;11

Jenny Best

I know what it’s like. I know what drives those decisions from not wanting to get messy to being afraid of choking, to being afraid of allergies, what have you. But the reality is, is that there’s a window of time in which the brain more easily picks up the kind of mechanisms of chewing and safe eating and swallowing.

 

00;04;36;11 – 00;04;50;13

Jenny Best

It’s a lot going on. You have to take a piece first. You have to learn to take an accurate sized bite. Then you’ve got to learn to move the food to the side of the mouth, to the molars for chewing. Molars aren’t quite there yet, but the gums are very powerful and very strong. Then you’ve got a kick in that reflex.

 

00;04;50;13 – 00;05;12;18

Jenny Best

You go up and down, then you gotta move the food back to the middle of tongue to go down. When you’re a spoon feeding a texture less food like a velvety puree. Yeah. You may notice the baby actually tries to use the spoon as leverage to swallow it, because purees are soft to swallow. And this is such an important thing that I wish other pediatric ones, like, really were taught and learned.

 

00;05;12;18 – 00;05;36;17

Jenny Best

You know, in the realm of infant swallowing, purees are sucked to swallow. So that notion of stage one, to stage two, to stage three, of thickness of puree or even moving up to a lumpy puree, those are not foods that are going to trigger the chewing reflexes. And you know, to be candid, this is a marketing thing by baby food companies to extend.

 

00;05;36;24 – 00;06;05;28

Jenny Best

But they would call the lifetime consumer value of the customer to keep you on their product for as long as possible. To teach babies how to chew, you have to offer truly chewable food and the fast is way to kind of jump start chewing through chewing. Safe eating, as we would see it, is actually to go to the other extreme, unbreakable, resistive, kind of foods like sticks of food.

 

00;06;05;28 – 00;06;22;07

Jenny Best

So when we have babies who are children that we work with, who have been on purees for a very long time, gag a lot with just even a piece of rice or something like that, which, you know, then makes the parent go, I want to stay on purees longer because I can’t deal with the gagging. It’s scary. It looks like they’re choking.

 

00;06;22;10 – 00;06;51;18

Jenny Best

Our feeding therapist actually give them what we call food tea. There’s things like the seed of a mango, a mango pit, a corn on the cob, a chicken drumstick bone, things that are unbreakable by a six month olds jaws. But that put a lot of sensory input and pressure into the mouth, which helps the brain more rapidly. Make a mental map of the mouth, which will reduce the gagging, but also triggers lateral tongue movements and chewing reflexes to really start going.

 

00;06;51;18 – 00;07;23;17

Jenny Best

Okay, I need to move this food over here. I need to go up and down, up and down, move it back, and then swallow. A puree is just not going to do that. And unfortunately, one of the messages I’m really trying to bring to parents, now that I’ve dove into the research and really got intimately familiar with all the mechanics of this, is that there is no skipping ahead, you have to go through and kicking the can down the road saying, oh, I’m just going to wait until 12 months of age or 18 months of age in my case, to do chewable food, because that’s when they’ll be more mature and they’ll have more teeth,

 

00;07;23;19 – 00;07;45;13

Jenny Best

actually makes it harder for the babies brain to pick up the skill because they’ve got the dominant suck reflex happening. And you’re reinforcing that by offering the mesh pouches or, you know, whatever you’re doing. The best thing I can tell those parents who are like, oh God, I need to make the leap now. And, you know, I need to go over to chewable foods sooner than later.

 

00;07;45;13 – 00;08;25;02

Jenny Best

But I don’t feel ready. Is that your baby’s body has your back? Yeah, the protective mechanisms. And I know you know this very well, doctor, but like the protective mechanisms and the gag reflex is only one of many, are very powerful and strong in infant. And from a feeding therapist’s perspective, or like an infant swallowing perspective, our specialists and licensed professionals love doing early introduction and finger food for that very reason, because some of the reflexes, the protective reflexes, start to fade after 12 months of age.

 

00;08;25;05 – 00;08;52;08

Jenny Best

And so in a lot of ways, you kind of want to introduce the challenging foods. And it sounds counterintuitive, I know, but you want to introduce the challenging foods. While babies protective reflexes against choking are at their all time high. Yeah, it makes a perfect kind of landscape for making mistakes safely and also just as babies. And if you remember your young baby like, can barely see you.

 

00;08;52;08 – 00;09;21;07

Jenny Best

And then there’s that moment where they, like, actually focus on you. Their eyes are able to focus and they kind of know where they are. And you’re like, oh, hello, welcome to the world. Yeah, it’s similar with toddlers. They’re more aware and more bothered by gagging and discomfort textures in their mouth than infants are a lot of young babies like a six month old baby might take a two big piece, a bite of chicken or something like that kind of go, oh, what’s this big thing in my mouth?

 

00;09;21;07 – 00;09;41;02

Jenny Best

And then have to gag it forward or spit it out. You’ll often see them go right back for the same piece of food. Yes, really. Because they’re just, like, unfazed. They’re unfazed. Just so wired to explore the world orally. But a 12 month old, an 18 month old might gag and then be like, oh, that didn’t feel good.

 

00;09;41;02 – 00;10;07;08

Jenny Best

I don’t like it. I don’t want to do that again. So we really want to take advantage of that window of opportunity, particularly between 6 and 9 months of age. Babies are just wired to learn how to chew and how to explore food at that age. And it’s a perfect age where the protective mechanisms against choking in the body are just so easily triggered and so powerful that it’s a really safe time to explore.

 

00;10;07;08 – 00;10;30;22

Jenny Best

So I know it’s like the opposite of everything we have ever been told by our doctors, by the, you know, institutions that govern this knowledge. But the reality is, is that a lot of that knowledge, you know, particularly ten years ago and before was, not shaped by evidence based research. And I’m sure, you know, a little bit of that, too.

 

00;10;30;23 – 00;10;34;29

Jenny Best

Pediatrics is a difficult area to have a lot of research in.

 

00;10;35;01 – 00;10;50;12

Dr. Mona

Yeah, and a lot of it, as we know and you’ve talked about it is, you know, you already mentioned on this episode is the marketing of baby Food and how that has impacted a lot of the advice that’s been given. And marketing is very, very important in all aspects of parenting. We know not just with the food industry, but toys and play.

 

00;10;50;12 – 00;11;12;27

Dr. Mona

And you need this and this, and this is going to help you sleep through the night. And this is going to do this. It’s like preying on parents fears and worries and I want my kid to be safe and healthy. And I agree with that. You know, I feel like even when we look at milestones, you know, we talk about crawling and babbling, all of this stuff, you know, we have language and communication, motor, fine motor, social, emotional, cognitive.

 

00;11;12;29 – 00;11;27;03

Dr. Mona

We need to really, really look at feeding as a milestone. And feeding does get grouped into speech and communicate sometimes. But if you look at like the CDC milestones, there is not a lot about feeding milestones. And it’s something that is really important.

 

00;11;27;03 – 00;11;54;14

Jenny Best

Thank you. Yes. Where is that? Yeah, I think back to the time when I was that terrified mom. Terrified the choking, terrified of allergies, spoon fed for, you know, almost two years. If I had had a handout that said, if you want to start with purees, do this, but at eight months of age, introduce finger food. I would have sort of known how far off track I got, you know, because I didn’t think I told our doctor.

 

00;11;54;14 – 00;12;02;20

Jenny Best

Like, it just didn’t seem like a thing I should be aware of. There was no information about it.

 

00;12;02;23 – 00;12;24;02

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real, relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram @thePedsDocTalkpodcast.

 

00;12;24;09 – 00;12;39;21

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support and remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.