Beyond the Plate: What Your Picky Eater is Really Trying to Tell You

In the Season 2 finale, I’m bringing it all together, the research, the real-life examples, and the practical wisdom from my BLOOM™ Framework,  to help you see picky eating in a whole new way.

Instead of adding more tips to your already overwhelming to-do list, I’m inviting you to shift your lens and ask: What is my child’s picky eating really trying to tell me?

We’ll talk about:

• Why picky eating is often dismissed and why that can be a dangerous mistake
• The deeper root causes behind picky eating (hint: it’s not “just behavior”)
• How toxic environmental factors are making food struggles worse
• Why oral motor skills, gut health, and nutrient status matter more than sticker charts
• How the 5 pillars of my BLOOM™ Framework connect to create lasting change
• The smallest shifts that can create the biggest impact even if you start with just one
• How connection and safety can open the door to new food experiences

Whether you’re parenting a toddler who refuses everything but goldfish crackers or an older child with years of food struggles, this episode will help you see their eating patterns through a whole-child lens — and know exactly where to start.

Links & Resources Mentioned:

Grab the 10 Easy Strategies to Help Picky Eaters at Home guide

my website: www.lenalivinsky.com

Free clarity call with Lena

The Picky Eating Reset

Grab your Bon Charge gear here, code LenaL for 15% off your purchase 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making significant dietary changes.

Transcript

welcome to the Livin'Sky podcast. I am so excited for you to be here today listening in to the last episode of season two. And whether you've listened all season or this is your first episode, welcome. I'm so happy that you're here and that we found each other. I know that being a mom can be very hard. I know this.

From my own experience, I'm a mom of one right now of a three and a half year old boy, who is a picky eater. And sometimes that can feel very defeating and it can be exhausting when it comes to food and your everyday responsibilities and trying to feed your family and do a million other things while you're doing that.

It can be quite hard and I totally understand that and I feel you because I deal with the same kind of issue at home. And this is exactly why I wanted to record this episode and.

This episode isn't just a list of tips for you to do to add on to your to-do list, which is already full and overwhelming. I want this episode to be sort of like a lens shift. It's going to give you a different way of seeing what's really going on beneath the surface with your child's picky eating.

I want this episode to tie kind of everything together for you so you can walk away feeling not overwhelmed, but empowered to make a change in your child's life that's going to bring on positive results and bring on changes around your table, right? Around your family meal time table because that place shouldn't be stressful. That place should be a place of connection with your family.

a place where you all come together after a full day or at the beginning of an exciting day where you are eating together

and sharing conversations and having fun together and being playful and just enjoying each other's company. It should not be a place of stress or a place of dread where you don't feel like being, or a place where you feel like a failure because you didn't prepare a meal that your child wants to eat. It should never be that way. So this is exactly why I wanted to record this episode tie it all together and

help you understand where you can start to make this big shift. And if you've ever looked at your child at the dinner table and thought, why is this so hard? What am I missing? That question, that moment is exactly what this episode is all about.

Feeding challenges are often misunderstood, especially in toddlers and young kids. And oftentimes, unfortunately, they are dismissed because of their age. Because yes, toddlers do tend to be picky as they're exploring new foods and new textures and new smells and new settings where they're eating, right? Perhaps they're starting a daycare, perhaps they're starting a new school. Life can get overwhelming. And when our kids are off of routine, that can affect the way that they're eat.

Yes, developmentally as well, they go through all these developmental jumps and sometimes the way they eat is affected. Absolutely. However, that's not always the case. Right now, about 25 % of kids, and I do believe that that number is going to grow 25 % of kids true picky eaters.

Those are the kids that if we do not help them right now, they're going to go on to develop more picky tendencies as they get older. And they're going to continue to struggle with this in their life because this picky eating problem, this feeding disorder problem was never addressed. So this is something that is really important to bring up here because I do know that there is this myth of

Every child will grow out of it that kind of is circling around. And some kids, yes, some kids will grow out of this, but many won't. And I do believe it's more than 25%. I do believe it's more like 50 right now because our environment has become highly toxic. We come into contact with about 80,000 different chemicals every day. The clothes that we wear are more toxic, right? Polyester blends.

The food that we eat is more processed. The soil where our food grows is depleted of minerals. There is endless reasons why our environment has become more toxic and that is taking a toll on our children's health and on their picky eating tendencies. It's making them worse.

dominant narrative around picky eating focuses on behavior, that we can fix it with rewards, that we can create a chart with stars. And if a child does the right behavior, takes a bite or licks a carrot, know, perhaps they're going to get a star and then a prize at the end. We exert pressure on our kids because we believe that their behavior around food

⁓ should be changed and that they're just being bratty or they're just being annoying or maybe they're just tired. This is why they're acting this way. And sometimes that happens, of course, our kids have, different feelings and emotions and they're going to act out in different ways. But oftentimes, if there is a constant behavior around eating, around a certain food, around a certain family of foods, around certain food groups, such as proteins or vegetables or fruits or

grains or dairy, that is a bigger story. And these behaviors are communicating that there is something off, right? Because let's remember that picky eating is not a diagnosis. Picky eating is a symptom of something deeper happening in the body, a deeper imbalance, a deeper root cause or

that are creating this imbalance in the body that is then showing up as a behavior of picking eating.

So what if feeding issues aren't about control or stubbornness? What if they're communicating Something is wrong. Perhaps your child is trying to tell you when they're throwing a tantrum around the dinner table that, hey, mommy, my tummy hurts, but I don't know how to communicate this differently. How about if your child has reflux? How about if their posture is pretty poor and they cannot

swallow safely? What about if something's wrong with their chewing and they are really having a hard time chewing that ground beef or that steak and meat texture is really hard for them right now and they just can't handle it. So they just prefer not to eat any meat right now. There are many things that our children are trying to communicate to us without saying exactly what they want or what they need because they don't know how to communicate that clearly.

⁓ but their body is telling us something, something's wrong.

and oftentimes our children's nervous system is dysregulated. They're really stressed. Their signals, their biology, they're telling us something that something is off. And this is exactly how it shows up at meal times, but we misinterpret it as a bad behavior.

or them being picky. So for example, I worked with a family whose four-year-old would scream at the sight of scrambled eggs, but they would eat goldfish without hesitation, right? Crunchy goldfish, which is sort of harder to chew than a scrambled egg. But it wasn't about the food. It was about texture. It was about the fear. And their nervous system was kind of stuck in overdrive every time that they saw this food, because scrambled eggs, they can have

many different textures, right? They can be runny, they can be kind of well done. They can be kind of clumped together versus broken apart. So if your child is having these sensory issues and texture aversions, scrambled eggs are always going to be challenging because they're not always prepared the same way. They might have different seasoning today versus what they had yesterday. And this is something that's hard for their senses to process right now versus Goldfish.

You know, it's crunchy, it's always the same. Every single goldfish tastes the same. Every single goldfish looks the same. So their nervous system is kind of in overdrive and they're nervous about this texture and about the fear of scrambled eggs. Whereas goldfish can bring them comfort because it can calm their nervous system and it can signal to their body that this is okay. You know exactly how to handle this. You know what this is. You know what it's going to taste like and it's safe to eat.

So this is why I wanted to restate the fact that picky eating isn't a label, right? It's a signal from your body. And it's our job to decode it with curiosity, not control, Because if your child prefers goldfish over scrambled eggs, what is that really telling us right now? Why is that?

So if picky eating is a signal, what might it be pointing to? is exactly what we're trying to figure out here. That's there the BLOOM Framework comes in.

BLOOM stands for B, balance health, L, learn oral skills, O, optimal microbiome, the second O is open exploration, and M is mealtime boundaries.

your child's signal might be saying, I don't feel good inside. And this is exactly where balanced health component comes in. Because it could be telling you that something's wrong within their body. Perhaps they are constipated. Perhaps they have low appetite. Perhaps they're sleepers, and that's affecting their microbiome.

that's affecting their nervous system, that's raising inflammation in their body. Perhaps their tantrums at meal times are signaling that something is wrong within their health. So this is something that we need to explore So here's an example. I worked with one child whose gut health was helped with chiropractic care because the child was chronically constipated.

And after a few adjustments, the child started to go to the bathroom regularly and that affected her appetite. once she started going regularly, she wanted to eat more and even more variety. So that's one way that where the balanced health component came in because we addressed that constipation.

Balanced health is something that can feel overwhelming because we don't know exactly what's going on. And child has any type of medical needs or if your child is chronically feeling unwell or showing you symptoms, right? Because you can see symptoms in many different ways. It can show up on the skin. It can show up in their hair. Maybe they have cradle cap. Maybe they have...

maybe they're losing hair, right? It could show up in...

poor blood sugar control. It can show up.

and just being tired all the time and moody all the time. All these symptoms are communicating something Maybe they're nutrient depleted, right? Zinc is one of the five most common nutrient deficiencies in children because we don't typically get enough of it from our foods anymore. And this is something that can really affect their

sensory processing, something that we learned from Dr. Song this season in episode eight.

was exactly that zinc deficiency is behind a lot of picky eating tendencies because it affects their sensory processing and how kids are able to tolerate different textures, smells, even visually looking at foods. if you are considering a balanced health issue, perhaps you can.

go to your pediatrician and ask some questions and ask for some testing to be done. Same with a functional practitioner. A functional practitioner might look a little bit more deeply or talk to any type of doctor you're already working with, any type of provider that you're already working with and ask about this. Talk to them about the symptoms, what you're seeing and what your concerns are. and once it's addressed,

and we can help our children feel better, oftentimes picky eating tendencies get better as well. Another component of the Bloom Framework that I think is very important is learn oral skills, because if your child can't physically chew something, then it's unsafe for them to eat it, and they're going to naturally say no to these items. Meat is something that is a little bit harder to chew, especially depending on how it's made, if you think about a steak.

Think about even ground meat. If it's clumped together, it takes a lot of effort for children to chew. And if they don't have the type of skills to do that, it's going to be hard for them. Same thing with any type of crunchy foods or regular consistency foods. If you have like, if you have crunchy broccoli, anything like that, it's going to be hard for them to chew. Even rice. Rice is difficult because even though it's soft, in order to make

a bite out of rice, you have to really use your tongue and your chewing and connect everything into one little piece and rice is pretty crumbly. So if your child is refusing some of these foods and or food groups, this is something to consider here. Hmm. Does my child have the oral motor skills needed to actually consume this food safely? Maybe this is why they're not eating it,

Some common signs of oral motor deficiencies is gagging on food, pocketing food, so kind of like holding food for prolonged periods of time, refusing certain texture groups like all the crunchy foods or all the tougher foods. That can often be a sign of oral motor skills deficiencies. And perhaps they're having a hard time swallowing. If your child coughs a lot when they're eating,

This could be a sign that something is going on internally as well. I would definitely then contact a speech language pathologist and your pediatrician to talk about these concerns.

Another component of the Bloom framework that I always look at is the optimal microbiome. We are not what we eat. We are the type of bacteria that our body has. We don't actually eat our food. The bacteria within our body is what eats our food and then decides how that's going to affect our health. So if we have a lot of bad bacteria in the gut, meaning a lot of fungus and there's candida overgrowth,

There's just a lot of bad guys in the tummy that's going to affect our children's cravings. It's going to affect their appetite. It's going to affect their mood, their emotions. It's going to affect their hunger signals. It's going to affect so many things when it comes to health and when it comes to willingness to eat that microbiome cannot be overlooked.

So common signals that something is out of balance in the microbiome is sugar obsession. Our kids just love and crave sugar. All they want to eat is a snack all day on candy and cookies, refusing protein. They're also eating a lot of carbohydrates, a very carbohydrate-heavy diet, so a lot of breads and pastas and

and kind of beige foods, chicken nuggets, anything that's breaded, right? So these are types of signs that there is a bacteria overgrowth, a bad bacteria imbalance in the tummy and the microbiome and the gut because...

These types of foods such as these carbohydrates and sugars, feed the bad bacteria. So this is something that definitely we need to pay attention to. If the child is refusing protein, if they don't know when they're full and they're overeating, if they don't have any appetite and all they really want to eat is like a wafer cookie here and there, or just something sugary or carbohydrate, that is often a sign that there is microbiome imbalances

It can also show up in many different ways. It's so nuanced. There's so many things to consider here, but these are just some basic, basic guidelines for picky eating. And we're only beginning to understand how the gut brain axis affects feeding, but it's real and it's very often overlooked. And just taking a probiotic is not going to fix the microbiome. There is a lot of shifts that need to be made.

and a lot of things to avoid to further harm the microbiome, such as overusing antibiotics and eating heavily sprayed, foods with glyphosate and different types of toxins. having wifi really near your child most of the day, avoiding the sun, not being outside a lot, spending most of their days indoors. The sun

the appropriate light shifts the microbiome more than food does. So it shifts at about 51 % of the way, and then food is only about like 50. it doesn't sound like it's a big percentage change. But when comes to our health, that's humongous. The fact that we can go outside take advantage of

the sun's different rays throughout the day, and that can make us healthier and can optimize our microbiome. and I think it's the best news that the sun can help your child's picky eating tendencies, because you can really to your advantage. ⁓

Kids mostly love to be outside. So this is something to consider here as well. The next area of the Bloom framework is open exploration. so essentially that's your child sending you a signal that I'm not ready to taste it, but I want to be, right? So perhaps we've looked at that motor component. We looked at their swallow. We looked at their.

microbiome component, we looked at their balance health and things are going well and they're still not eating, they're going to need to get a bit of a push in the right way without stressing them out to become a little bit more curious, common signs of this would be refusing to try things, touching or licking but not eating. They might be curious outside of meal times. They might be curious and maybe they'll eat something

at their aunt's house, at their friend's house, that they just won't try at home. So oftentimes that could be kind of environmental, where they kind of get stuck in a certain way of eating. that's when they might need a little bit of a push. And they need to be exploring food more in a playful way, from the beginning, perhaps growing something in the garden and exploring it that way.

Right, picking a carrot from the garden and washing it together and cutting it together and peeling it together and all the good stuff before they're ready to eat. Like perhaps this is just something that they need help with because they're kind of being stuck in that a little bit of fear, a little bit of anxiety, a little bit of I'm not sure. So they might need that push.

And I want to kind of reframe something that I think is a misconception. Food play isn't indulgent. It's not about distracting the child

it's not just about the child having fun. it's developmental. This is how they learn. This is how they're, they come to understand things. When you do, explore foods in a different way, let them explore it from a different perspective without the pressure of having to eat it. That can give them the push they need to actually become more adventurous

around the plate. So I definitely encourage open exploration with all kids, even if they're still having some issues with their health, because that's going to bring on positive associations that's going to give them more courage, that's going to give them more curiosity around food. So open exploration is always a good thing to try with your children.

I'm going to include a guide ⁓ in my show notes where I share 10 ideas for things you can do with your child at home and really explore the food in a different way. And the last component of the Bloom framework is mealtime boundaries. So this is when your child is kind of sending you the signal of, feel lost and pressured during meal times. They're kind of stressed and they graze a lot.

And they refuse when things change and they have a really hard time when there is no structure and they give you a lot of pushback around structure too though, but they really need it, So boundaries are safety. It's not rigidity and kids need that. They need to know the rules around how we're going to have these meals, where they're going to be, what is expected of us, how long the meal is going to take, what's going to happen if you don't

eat your food, that the pantry is not open for snacking after. These Meal Time Boundaries are really important and they give our kids a sense of safety around trying food. it's not about being pushy and about stressing your kids out. It's actually about us creating a safe environment for them to explore food. So I think those are very important.

And I think that they really address one of the biggest issues that we have right now, which is around over snacking and grazing and just not having the right type of environment for our children to have a proper meal because we're often distracted with screens and running around and just eating on the go and doing so many different things at once where

We have lost this environment of safety around eating, which our kids crave. So I think it's very important for us to consider mealtime boundaries and how we can set up their environment for success. And what I love about the Bloom framework, which I think is

this well-rounded whole child picture of where the feeding issue could be. But I love how each pillar works with the others, right? Everything is connected in our children. It's never just about one thing. Everything affects other things in our bodies, when things that are out of alignment and perhaps our children have oral motor skill issues, perhaps they have weakness,

that can be coming also from poor posture, that could be coming from just weakness overall in the body. or perhaps their posture is kind of poor because they have reflux in their tummy, right? Everything's connected. Every pillar affects each other. And when we zoom out and look at the whole child from this perspective, that's exactly when we can start.

to understand things better and understand how we can help our children differently.

But for those of you who are thinking, so where do I start? Where do I even go? I have no idea what's going on with my child. You don't have to fix all five pillars tomorrow. Connection is, I think, a very powerful starting point. where you get a chance to co-regulate with your child, slow down with them. Show them this emotional safety. Show them that you're understanding.

that you are looking into this, that you're trying to look at it from a different lens, where you get on their level and you try to...

have this beautiful conversation with them and these beautiful moments where you guys are together and playing that's going to affect their nervous system. That's going to give them a feeling of safety, which they deeply need because eating is such a vulnerable activity. It's probably one of the hardest things your child will ever do because so many different senses

come into play. So many different body parts, so many different emotions, so many different activities around it. It can be so overwhelming and it can be so vulnerable. connection is what can really help you understand your child better, get on their level, and it can also help you see things that perhaps you didn't see through this lens before. So I really recommend you work on connection first.

so that you can start to observe things and bring in sort of this fresh look, fresh eyes into the situation, especially during and outside of meal times, right? Because maybe your child eats okay because they're excited, they're having a great meal, and then at the end of the night, you're noticing like, hey, they're not sleeping well today because they had a glass of milk. Maybe they have some lactose intolerant.

Maybe all of a sudden they're having diarrhea or constipation after they're having this meal on a Wednesday. You never know. So when you connect with your child, you can start to notice these patterns and start to understand things from a different lens so then you know where to start and if you need to seek outside help.

Progress doesn't always look like a bite. Sometimes it looks like less fear. Sometimes it looks like excitement around having a meal together. Sometimes it looks like licking something. Sometimes it looks like tolerating something on a plate that they would have never allowed you to put on their plate before.

So many things can signify progress. And if we slow down, we can really start to pay attention. And even the smallest shift in one pillar can have a huge ripple effect on all of the other pillars, which is something that I love to think about because you don't have to change their entire diet right away. You don't have to change their entire environment. You don't have to...

teach them a skill they never had before completely until they start to become less picky. Every little thing can make a big change. Maybe switching their favorite chocolate chip cookies, which they eat three times a day into a healthier brand. That's the only thing you can do right now. And maybe that's something that's going to help them with their microbiome because they're no longer feeding the bad bacteria all these chemicals.

and all these processed ingredients, maybe making fresh chocolate chip cookies with just like four ingredients is how you start. And that is beautiful. And that is exactly what can make a huge difference in your child's life. It doesn't have to be all things at once. It could be the smallest change. It could be the smallest change.

maybe the type of milk you buy them is no longer ultra pasteurized. Maybe that milk is an organic milk. That's just a little bit pasteurized on low heat. so it doesn't kill all the beneficial probiotics in them. It's little things that can make a lot of difference. And I want you to take a deep breath and figure out like, maybe all I can do today.

and figure out exactly what it is that you can do. It could be one little shift, it could be five little shifts, but all these shifts add up. And I'm so excited for you to start to think about it this way without the pressure of an entire feeding program where you have to do this entire strategy and fix everything. It doesn't have to look like that, especially not at the beginning. The beginning can be very slow.

and it can still make a big difference.

So if your gut says this is more than picky eating, I want you to think about this. Some kids have deeper needs. They might have oral motor delays. They might have gut inflammation. They might have sensory sensitivities. They might have trauma history with eating. Perhaps they choked on a piece of apple and now they're afraid of swallowing foods. There could be a lot of things that could be causing picky eating issues. And I want you to really think about this from this different lens.

So if you've tried all the tricks and nothing has worked, it's not because you're doing it wrong, it's because the root hasn't been addressed yet. It's because you probably haven't looked at your child from this Bloom framework perspective where...

You haven't considered that maybe they're low on zinc. Maybe they're low in magnesium. Maybe they're low in iron, which can also affect picky eating. Maybe they're not sleeping well and they're having really bad nights consistently, and that's affecting their appetite and their stress levels. And their nervous system is dysregulated.

And maybe they need help with their balanced health, And this is where professional support makes all the difference. This is where you can have the guidance you seek and you need without having to guess and without wasting time. Because yes, our kids are little, but they grow so quickly. And the longer we wait,

the more picky eating tendencies can develop. It's a very different ball game when you work with a three-year-old who's some sensory sensitivities around food versus a 15-year-old who's had sensory sensitivities or sensory issues from when they were three years old. Because there is a lot of undoing.

There is a lot of convincing that needs to come on and perhaps that open exploration and mealtime boundaries component is going to be much harder. And it also doesn't mean that if you're listening to this and you have older kids who are picky eaters that it's too late. It's never too late. You can always make changes to positively affect their picky eating tendencies and to help them heal from these sensitivities.

but it's always better to do it earlier rather than later. So that this road to recovery and to becoming an adventurous eater is a bit faster.

So this is exactly what I do. I help parents connect the dots. I create the plan that fits their needs. create a plan that fits their child.

not just work and focus on their behavior because let's not forget behavior is It's signaling to us that something else is going on in the body and we need to figure out what that is.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope that it brought you clarity. I hope that you are feeling encouraged to take action with your child because it's never too late and the earlier the better. So I am very excited for you to be here today and to be listening to this. This is the last episode of season two, but season three will be coming out shortly with other amazing guests and other solo episodes centering around eating and feeding and picky eating.

and I cannot wait for you to listen. So if you wanna stay in the loop and know when that is, I always send out a newsletter to my email list first and they have the first dibs on the podcast. and on anything that I'm doing and anything that I've been learning. So if you want to be added to the email list, You can go to my website at lenalivinsky.com

There's many different guides you can sign up for it there, and I'm also going to leave a link under the show notes of this episode. So whatever you're listening, whether it's Spotify or Apple, you can just click right on the episode and you can find it right there. I have a lot of free picky eating guides on my website, different strategies you can use at home, a different guide talking about the bloom framework in a little bit more detail so it can bring you more understanding. and I'm happy to share those with you and they're right on my website again, lenalivinsky.com

⁓ and I'm going to leave one of the guides also in the show notes here. So it's an easier grab for you. And you can always book a free clarity call with me to brainstorm some ideas, to see where you are, whether this is the step that whether this is the moment where you should seek professional help, whether this is something that you can address at home. I'm always happy to offer that service to you and to chat with you a little bit deeper about it.

I also have a program that I offer to my families that I work with. So it's called the picky eating reset. If you're ready for deeper support and to really, and to really dig into that bloom framework, I'm happy to do that for you. It's a 12 week program where we work together and we have some one-on-one calls and we do a very thorough intake. And I have you send in some videos of your child and of your meal times.

So I can have a really good understanding of what's going on at home, not just based on what you said, but what I've observed myself. So I can use some of that expertise as a feeding specialist that I've learned over the past 13 have more of a clinical look of what's going on. I can't wait for you guys to come back for season three. We'll be deep diving more into this and some more.

health related topics. And I can't wait to share that with you shortly. and I want you to remember this, picky eating might be the symptom, but healing, confidence, and connection, those are the outcomes we're working toward. And it starts with small steps, little steps here and there, a little change here and there, maybe getting an air filter for better water, maybe adding some minerals to your water if your water is stripped of minerals.

Maybe it's airing out your home more and bringing in some light and bringing in some fresh air. And maybe it's reducing some mold in the house. It's many different things, many different things that you can do to make a huge difference in your child's life without

needing to overwhelm yourself with another million things to do.

So thank you again for joining me today. I hope this message resonated with you Write me an email, book a clarity call, whatever it is you want to do. I'm so excited to meet you and hear more from you and answer any of the questions that you may have and help you in any way that I can. See you in season three. Take care.