Food
Texture, smell and how food looks often weigh more than hunger, and something unknown on the plate triggers suspicion at once. The pictures below let the child meet the meal with their eyes before the fork.
Food
An assortment of food including bread, a carrot, an apple, a banana, grapes and a bowl.
About this visual support
For many children, food is first about how it feels in the mouth and looks on the plate, not the hunger in the stomach. A lumpy sauce, an unexpected colour or two dishes touching can be enough to make the whole meal feel unsafe, and at that point telling a child to just have a taste rarely helps.
With visual support, the child gets to see what will be served before sitting down at the table. The food becomes familiar while still at a distance, and a picture of something new beside what is already safe makes taking a bite less dramatic. The visual gives the child a chance to get used to the idea calmly, without the pressure of a full plate right under their nose.
One concrete tip: keep the different items separated in the picture just as on the plate, so nothing blurs together, and introduce only one new picture at a time beside the favourites. In the Routined app you can lay out the weekly meals with pictures in advance, so the child knows what is coming and is not caught off guard mid-hunger.