My son just had the same 8 yo check up as yours. The dr told us he wants to stop the upwards trend and he eats basically no veggies. They are twins. That was a month ago.

First I stopped letting him buy school lunch. Totally lazy but I hadn't been checking his account and I don't like making lunch. He had been having a free for all with junk. So now he takes a healthy lunch.

I've been putting raw veggies out before dinner and he's been eating at least a bite. He will also eat spinach with cheese or canned pumpkin baked with butter and cinnamon. The dr told him it was really important to eat any vegetables so he's listening for now. My other child loves those baby peppers but he won't touch them.

For us, I think lunch was the issue but we will see at next year's appointment. Good luck!

OP, put raw veggies or a salad out on the table about 15-20 minutes before the meal is ready. Include a bowl of ranch or yogurt dressing for dipping. Set out sliced fruit.

Keep cooking dinner so the smells make him hungry and let him graze on the veggies or salad before mealtime. Don't make him sit and let him pick with his fingers as we walks by.

He will eat veggies this way without even knowing it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the PP who said "if it wasn't around 200 years ago, you shouldn't be eating it." What does a day look like then? Not being rude at all, just can't wrap my head around it.

Breakfast 2 hard boiled eggs and blueberries
Snack small Apple
Lunch grilled chicken salad
Snack almonds
Dinner grilled salmon, 2 small red potatoes and broccoli

Well, you are wrong.

Read books from that era. Farmer Boy is a good example (about 150 years ago).

People from that era ate. A lot. None of this bird eating you are outlining. Big farmers breakfasts. Pies. Bread. Startchy dishes. Cheeses. Healthy, big helpings.

The menu you outlined is a relatively new type of eating and would not have been around 200 years ago. If they were middle class or affluent, they ate big, hearty meals. If they were poor they ate one or two very simple things many meals in a row of things that were not very balanced. They did not eat vegetables and fruit for much of the year unless it was boiled down into preserves or jellies. Off season, they only ate things like potatoes and other roots that would keep. Fruit, othe than apples, was a treat and oranges were exotic. It was easier to get a stick of candy than it was to get an orange. Their meat for most of the year was heavily preserved salt pork, salted down fish, jerky or ham.

Anonymous wrote:We sometimes offer a dinner with one meat and two veggies and no starch item, like carrots and brocoli or peas and green beans. My kids like it perfectly steamed or boiled i.e. not mushy, served with a little dipping bowl of soy sauce. The soy sauce has a ton of sodium but they eat much more veg when they have it. They also like artichokes, served with a small dipping bowl of melted butter. Sometimes I will pretend the rest of the food is not ready and put a bowl of peas or corn on the table in front of them with a spoon. As long as they have not had to many afternoon snacks they gobble it up while I clank around in the kitchen "getting the chicken and noddles ready."

Too funny. My parents put corn in the creamy Kraft macaroni and cheese. I still do it sometimes because it tastes "normal" if I'm eating Kraft with the kids.

I use screentime as a reward.

OP here -- Ok, so screen time incentive is a bad idea. But I have been putting veggies in front of him for 8 years and he still absolutely refuses. I don't know what's left to do.
My other son is trying so many things (and at the 25 percentile on weight).

Anonymous wrote:Trading veggies for screen time is a good way to guarantee he'll hate veggies.

This is true for literally any reward for veggies-- or even any reward for eating, like, chocolate. Studies have shown this repeatedly.

Trading veggies for screen time is a good way to guarantee he'll hate veggies.

What about for breakfast he gets 1 bowl of cereal + milk, and then if he is still hungry, you can make a smoothie with greek yogurt, a splash of milk, and frozen and/or fresh bananas/strawberries? I just leave my mini-food processor on the counter and making a only takes a few minutes at most. And greek yogurt has high protein so it should fill him up.