Aoife Hearne: How can I encourage my son to eat his lunch?

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My son is in first class and rarely eats his lunch. At most, he’ll nibble on the sandwiches. He says he’s not hungry and just wants to play with his friends at lunchtime. I cut the sandwiches into quarters and chop the vegetables into sticks. Is there anything else I can do?

Most families will encounter this stage at one point or another. Just when children move out of the food refusal stage, they experience the conflict between eating or playing at school. It’s not unusual for children to pick playing over eating most of the time.

The solution will likely be based on some detective work by you in conjunction with the implementation of proven strategies that support healthy eating habits in children.

My advice is based on the assumption that your child is growing normally. If you have any concerns about his weight or height, you should discuss these with your general practitioner, public health nurse, or registered dietitian.

Your son claims that ‘he is not hungry’. I’m curious about the evidence to back up his statement. It is often the case that children eat a large breakfast before they go to school, and a few bites of sandwiches or fruit is enough to keep them satisfied until they come home.

One of our most important jobs as parents is teaching our children to pay attention to their hunger and fullness signals and respect them. For this reason, I am reluctant to advise you to cajole your child into eating more food than he feels he needs.

However, if you notice that he has intense hunger after school, is irritable, and shows other symptoms of inadequate food intake, here are a few ideas that can make lunch a little more appealing and easier to eat during busy lunch breaks.

• Consider involving him in the lunch prep process. While this is not always the panacea it’s purported to be, allowing children to have some input into the foods that make it into their lunch boxes will help increase interest in its contents.
• Make sure the food is easy to access. Avoid tubs and containers that are difficult to open or eat. Finger foods are often more appealing—for example, chopped fruit instead of whole fruit or crackers instead of bread and rolls.
• Avoid the school lunch postmortem at home. Try to resist the urge to rifle through his lunch box after school to assess the contents.
• Think outside the traditional ‘lunch box’. Lots of foods other than sandwiches can suit at this time. To keep lunch boxes interesting, consider including a few options that are well-accepted at home.
• Avoid overfilling his lunch box. Children are often overwhelmed by the portions provided, which can turn them off from eating anything. Think about providing snack-size portions of foods rather than meal-size portions.

Assuming your child is growing normally, leaving his lunch uneaten might not be of huge concern. While it may be counterintuitive, taking the focus off food for a while is worthwhile. Instead, pivot towards consistently offering balanced meals in a structured way and letting him eat as much or as little as he wants.

The good news is that it is getting closer to the end of the school year, and the summer holidays may give him a chance to reset, allowing him the space to figure out what he wants to eat.

If you have a question for dietitian Aoife Hearne, please send it to [e-mail]