Picky Eaters: The Kids Are All Right : Health: What’s a parent to do with a finicky youngsters? Back off. But set a good example.

Four-year-old Sam eats bagels (plain) and peanut butter (creamy), cucumbers (peeled) and scrambled eggs (sometimes). At meals, when the rest of the family drinks milk or juice, he swigs from a bottle of Evian. His mother is frantic.

“The doctor says he’s growing, and he certainly looks healthy,” she said. “But it’s hard to feed a child who doesn’t want what you have to offer.”

Parents’ complaints about picky eaters are on the rise, said Ellyn Satter, author of “How to Get Your Kid to Eat but Not Too Much” (Bull Publishing: $14.95). She blames the increase on the demise of the family dinner and the growing interest in nutrition. But you have to realize that most children are basically conservative when it comes to food.

“You could say they are naturally picky eaters,” said Alexandra Logue, professor of psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and author of “The Psychology of Eating and Drinking” (W. H. Freeman: $17.95).

Kids’ experience is so limited that foods we take for granted are to them new and very strange. They also taste and smell things more acutely than we do, Logue said, so the broccoli that is pleasantly bitter to an adult can be unbearable to a child, and the sour-sweet lemonade that refreshes parents will make a child wince.

Usually, children get used to new foods by seeing others eat them. But if you take away the family dinner, there is no place for children to learn from the people they trust what is considered safe to eat.

Family meals are good because they take the pressure of eating off the child, said Satter. “When you cook for the family, the food is just there and it’s not a big issue. If you cook only for the child, you have a too-big investment in their eating, and you’ll put up the pressure.”

All children go through periods when they are finicky eaters. It is part of the process of growing up and becoming an individual, of learning to say no. The baby who ate whatever you spooned into his mouth becomes the 2-year-old whose lips clamp shut at the sight of oatmeal, the 4-year-old who eats only bananas and processed cheese, the 8-year-old who takes peanut butter sandwiches to school every day.

That is fine if parents do not panic. If they can relax and trust children’s appetites, adults will find that children eat what they need and eventually accept more foods.

But it is difficult to relax. It is doubly hard if you believe good nutrition is central to a good life. When a parent who believes passionately in a low-cholesterol, high-fiber diet has a child who eats only hard-cooked eggs and white bread, trouble is sure to follow.

“All parents hate it when their children don’t eat,” Satter said. “But the pressures go way up when the parents are involved with nutrition. They worry, they push, the kids get stubborn, and what started as a mild dislike winds up as an eating problem.”

Good nutrition is important, of course. But as long as children are growing and thriving, they are probably eating enough, doctors say. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study of toddlers’ eating habits. It found a great variation from child to child and from meal to meal, but all children ate about the same number of calories in the course of a day as they did the day before, and the number of calories each took in was related to that child’s weight.

In addition, pressure and bribery are guaranteed to result in even-pickier eating and a more limited diet.

What, then, is a parent to do? Back off. Swallow your feelings of rejection and your conviction that the child’s life will be blighted by a bad diet. Vow to keep your mouth shut.

Then make changes in the way you feed them. Every day, offer three meals and at least two snacks that are as nutritious as the meals. If the child is hungry before dinner, offer fruit, carrot sticks or whole-wheat bread, and cut out the sweet or salty snacks that kill appetites.

If the child is thirsty, offer water. Many parents overdo apple juice, which adds calories in sugar but not much else.

Always eat with your child. If you cannot be there, be sure that the baby-sitter eats with the child.

Try to offer a variety of foods without making any comments on them. If you serve a new food, offer something the child already knows and loves too. If that’s chicken and rice, serve it with (yuk!) Brussels sprouts or (yuk!) beets.

Keep portions small. Satter tells parents of toddlers to serve one tablespoon of a food for each year of a child’s age. Two-year-olds get two tablespoons of hamburger, two tablespoons of corn and one-half banana. It is not much, but it is enough, and if they are hungry, they can ask for more.

When you cook for children, make the food simple and bland. Not only are children’s tastes more acute than ours, but they are suspicious of foods they cannot identify. Who knows what might be lurking in a stew?

Let them help you cook. A child who dices vegetables for minestrone will feel more confident about eating it.

And consider children’s hand skills. Serve forkable twists, not long, slippery spaghetti. Make soups thick with rice and vegetables so the broth does not spill out of the spoon.

No bribery. Kids are not dumb. If you promise them ice cream if they eat their zucchini, they’ll know which food you think tastes good.

Have patience. Studies show it may take 20 exposures to a new food before a child tries it. Even then, it can be hard to see that progress is being made. Satter told of a boy who gradually let the bowl of lima beans come close to his dinner plate. Then he put a lima bean on his plate. Finally, he put one in his mouth and took it out. “His mother thought it was a defeat, but it was really a triumph.”

And make no comments on what or how much they eat. You wouldn’t say anything to an adult, would you?

There’s a saying among early-childhood specialists, said Betty Cuccurullo, a former home economics teacher who runs a school for nannies: “It’s up to the mother to decide when and what to eat, but it’s up to the child to decide whether and how much to eat.”

These kid-tested recipes were developed by Betty Cuccurullo for a course on feeding infants and toddlers . Recipes may have to be cut down for single-child families.

KIDS’ MINESTRONE SOUP

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup finely chopped celery

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 (16-ounce) cans white beans

1 (16-ounce) can whole tomatoes

4 cups water

1 cup diced peeled carrots

1 cup diced green beans

1 cup finely chopped cabbage

2 zucchini, diced 1/4-inch

1 cup peas

1 cup uncooked elbow macaroni or broken spaghetti

1 cup chopped fresh basil or 1 tablespoon dried basil

Salt, pepper

Grated Parmesan cheese

Melt butter with olive oil in large kettle over medium heat. Saute onion and celery until tender. Add garlic, white beans with liquid, tomatoes and water. Bring to boil then simmer 15 minutes.

Add carrots, green beans, cabbage, zucchini and peas. Cook 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender. Add macaroni and basil. (Add more water if necessary, but minestrone should be halfway between soup and stew so children can scoop it up easily in spoon.)

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. Makes 10 to 12 servings.

KIDS’ BROWNIES

1 (6-ounce) package semisweet chocolate pieces

2/3 cup butter or margarine

1 cup quick-cooking oats

1/2 cup wheat germ

2/3 cup nonfat dry milk

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

2 eggs

6 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt chocolate pieces and butter in double boiler or in microwave. Stir until smooth. Cool. Combine oats, wheat germ, dry milk, baking powder, salt and nuts.

Beat eggs until thick in large bowl. Gradually stir in sugar, molasses, vanilla and melted chocolate. Fold in oat mixture. Pour into buttered and wax-paper-lined 8-inch-square baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees 20 to 25 minutes or until top is crisp and wood pick inserted in center comes out slightly moist.

Cool. Cut into 5 strips in each direction. Makes 25 brownies, 85 calories each.

KIDS’ YOGURT SUNDAE

2 tablespoons thawed frozen orange juice, apricot puree or prune puree

1 cup plain yogurt

2 tablespoons crushed crunchy cereal (Grapenuts or Wheat Chex)

Swirl juice or fruit puree into yogurt. Divide into 2 bowls and sprinkle cereal on top. Makes 2 servings.

Note: For children younger than 2, use whole-milk yogurt. For children older than 2, use low-fat or nonfat yogurt.

KIDS’ MICROWAVE CUSTARD

2 cups milk

3 eggs

2/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Ground nutmeg

Place milk in 1-quart glass dish. Microwave on MEDIUM 4 to 5 minutes, or until scalded.

Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla in bowl. Gradually stir in hot milk, beating constantly. Fill 6 buttered custard cups. Sprinkle lightly with nutmeg. Heat on MEDIUM-LOW 8 to 9 minutes or until custard sets. Serve chilled. To speed cooling, set custard cups in pan of ice water. Makes 6 servings.