I recently read a great Huffington Post article by Dr. Katja Rowell about the art of offering foods to a picky eater. Dr. Katja Rowell is a physician in Minnesota working with children to establish healthy feeding relationship. She believes HOW children are fed is the missing piece in addressing disordered eating, unhealthy weight gain and damaging dieting behaviors. Her blog and facebook book pages are full of great advice. I encourage you to check them out.
In her article, Dr. Rowell shows us what an honest, no-pressure, make it easy, low obstacle food offers looks like. Although I would never describe E as a picky eater, I have noticed that she is not a big fan of a lot of fruits. She often puts them in her mouth and immediately spits them out again. So yesterday I decided to try this no-pressure food offer. We went outside to enjoy this beautiful sun we’re getting here in Portland. I brought a bowl of watermelon with us. This was her first experience with watermelon. I let her play with it on her terms. She brought it to her mouth a few times, but always spit it out. She found great pleasure in taking the watermelon out of the bowl and putting it back in. And then, of course, in the end she fed it to the dog. (I’m still not sure what my response should be when she does this).
This was almost a story about a baby who played with her watermelon and ended up feeding it to the dog, but it didn’t end there. At dinner, we placed some on her tray and, as always, let her decide whether or not to eat it. She ended up eating a piece without spitting it out! I celebrated inside, but stayed neutral on the outside. 
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