Top 6 Reasons Your Child Won’t Eat!

Do you have a picky eater on your hands? If mealtimes are stressful. Here’s why! Learn the 6 top reason’s why your child won’t eat?

Picky Eater or Problem feeder

Understanding the difference between a picky eater or problem is the first step in understanding why your child won’t eat.

Picky Eater

• A picky eater has 30 or more foods in his diet.
• They may fixate on particular foods and then “lose” that food due to burn out or just getting sick of it, but they are able to re-add that food to their diet after around 2 weeks of not having it.
• A picky eater is able to eat at least 1 food from all the food or texture groups
• May take a while to add new foods to his diet, and will need to experience that food up to 15-25 times before they are comfortable to eat it.
• Will eat with the family but frequently eats a different foods than the family

Problem feeder

• Her diet consists of less than 20 foods with a very restricted range
• cries or meltdowns at the prospect of new foods
• will refuse an entire category of food textures or nutrition group
• Needs at least 25 experiences of a food in order to add it to her food range
• Generally will have a different meal to the family and will often eat separate from the family

WHy picky eater versus problem feeder matters:

Understanding if your child is a picky eater or problem feeder is important because with our problem feeders there may be some significant underlying health problems associated and they may require feeding therapy support. Picky eaters, although incredibly challenging can be supported through the right plan to learn to eat a variety of foods at home.

Why is a varied diet so important for our kids?

It may seem obvious to some, but restricted diets often are comprised of processed foods containing high levels of sugar and low levels of nutrients. Persistent picky eating can cause a snowball effect of other challenges including weight loss/gain, attention challenges, inflammation leading to skin conditions, gut challenges and in some cases food intolerances, challenges with sleep, learning and sensory and emotional regulation. wow thats a lot of challenges!! Don’t worry there’s hope!

Now, here is not the time to start feeling guilty about your child’s diet. It is a known, researched fact that picky eating and problem feeding most often extends beyond “naughty child” “parenting capacity” reasoning (these can play a role but there is often a lot more going on). If you are reading this chances are you are doing everything you can to add nutrition and variety into your child’s diet! So let try find the root cause of the issue so we can start changing your child’s diet together!

Top 6 reasons your child is a picky eater

1. Pain
2. Malaise or Discomfort
3. Immature motor, oral motor, and/or swallowing skills.
4. Sensory processing problems
5. Learning/Behavioural
6. Nutritional

1&2 Does your picky eater have Pain, malaise or Discomfort

I want to group the above together because I think they are closely linked. Pain malaise or discomfort may be a temporary issue including a virus, developmental leap, teething, fatigue or other common illness. Reduction in food may last 1 day or even a few weeks. However, with the above reasons it generally resolves as the illness or discomfort goes away.

When we have ongoing challenges with eating we want to rule out other underlying causes for pain. This could include chronic constipation, food intolerances, inflammatory responses causing reflux and more. Look for signs of pain including facial grimacing, bloating, complaints of tummy ache’s possible allergic reactions including rash, diarrhoea, vomiting, fever or intense crying after or during mealtimes.

A word on Acid Reflux

Acid reflux is considered a hidden cause for picky eating. It is most common in babies but may have long term implications. Acid reflux can go undiagnosed and affect children for many years after. Sounds crazy right, how could my 6 year old be suffering from acid reflux? Since 2012 the hospitalisation for severe reflux in children has risen 84%. That’s just in hospital. This means so many more kids experience acid reflux, but are not at a level high enough to be hospitalised. Often your child will not comment that their stomach is sore due to them feeling this way for so long it becoes “normal”, thus undetected.

Some ways to detect that your child has Acid reflux:

• Seems to be swallowing something back down when not eating
• Complains of upset stomach
• Wet burps
• Frequent hiccups
• Hoarse voice
• Spitting up past 1 year of age
• Throwing up within 2 hours of eating
• Unusual, seemingly random loss of appetite
• Gagging

Medical Reason – Address it first!

Take home message for pain and discomfort is, we need to rule it out first. Forcing a child to eat through pain and discomfort can really impact both their psychological experience of food and overall health. If you suspect your child is in pain head to your GP or paediatrician for support.

3. Does your Picky eater have Immature Motor, oral motor, and/or swallowing skills?

If your child has difficulty chewing, swallowing or moving food around in his mouth we call this challenges with oral motor skills. A sign that your child may struggle with oral motor skills includes gagging/choking after the food is in their mouth for a few seconds and they have tried to chew it, spitting out half chewed food, or throwing up chunky foods (looks like it hasn’t been chewed). They may also have had trouble with breastfeeding.

These challenges may make your child refuse to eat certain foods because they are scared they might gag or choke on this food. This can snowball into sensory defensiveness – meaning the feeling of challenging foods in their mouth invokes fear and makes them refuse certain foods. Other signs your child might struggle with oral motor skills includes their preference for “easy to chew” foods like chicken nuggets, crackers or chips that dissolve in the mouth.

4. Does your Picky Eater have sensory processing problems

For many picky eaters sensory processing is a major reasons why they refuse certain foods. Simply put, food that feels gross or in their mouth or on their hands they just won’t want to eat.

When the feeling of certain food is aversive to your child this is called tactile defensiveness. This could translate into other areas like the feeling of “scratchy” clothing or refusing finger painting, or avoiding messy play. Children who have had oral experiences such as feeding tubes, medical tests, physical exams or severe vomiting this may cause oral aversion. This causes them to have increased sensitivity. to their mouths.

The opposite to being overly sensitive to food is under sensitive. These children will stuff their mouths full to increase the feeling of where food is in their mouth. They might refuse foods that are very soft and are hard to discriminate such as mashed potatoes. Foods that are crunchy, salty, very sweet or even spicy might be their favourite because they are easier to feel in their mouth.

Signs your child may struggle with sensory problems during mealtimes includes – squirming or wriggling in their seat, gagging at the sight, smell or touch of foods, saying things like yucky or no, increased rate of breathing when presented with certain foods. Generally acting scared or upset around foods.

Sensory can be the hidden link for your child’s refusal to eat. Working through these sensory challenges takes time and patience but has huge positive impacts. If you want to learn how to help your child overcome sensory challenges with food subscribe to my email list because I will be sharing valuable information every week straight to your inbox!

5. Learning/behaviour – Impact for your picky eater:

A quick note here: food refusal isn’t always your child being naughty. There is probably a-lot more going on and some food refusal is developmentally appropriate.

Let’s start by unveiling the annoying and challenging truth that it is normal for kids between the age of 1-2 will go through a period of difficulty eating and food refusal. Their tastebuds are developing and they are trying to establish independence and control in their lives. It’s really not called the terrible twos for nothing. Let’s instead call it the transformative twos, your child is learning about rules, boundaries, food, routines and everything in-between at an incredibly rapid rate! However, food refusal during this time can cause parents can become frustrated and push routine, nutrition out the window just to get their kids to eat. This has long term implications and can cause your child to be a picky eater for a longer term.

Fun Fact: We are born with all our tastebuds. As we grow our tastebuds spread out making it easier to distinguish flavours.

Now that’s a flavour punch!

Routines

If you discard your meal time routine and instead try giving food whenever it either suits or your child seems hungry we risk food refusal. Routines help our child’s body to regulate and prepare for eating.

Things like spacing out meals and snacks helps teach our body about appetite and a child will be more likely to eat at mealtimes because they are hungry.

Sitting around the table and going through the preparation of washing our hands or being called to eat helps your child feel safe and secure because it is familiar and they are prepared to eat. If we force our child to transition from play or another preferred activity straight into mealtimes without warning or a routine we can cause food refusal. They can also form negative associations with mealtimes. They label it as a less preferred activity because it takes them from doing the fun thing.

Try establishing a simple mealtime routine like 5 min warning to eat, washing hands and sitting at the table. Simple but can be very effective. It can be the difference between a overwhelmed child and a calm child!

Distractions

We can use distractions at mealtimes to get our children to eat more. This most commonly looks like toys while eating, iPads at the table, TV dinners or walking around and snacking at the same time. Although these can be effective in the short term they basically distract your child from the food in front of them. Special occasions like Movie night or parties are exceptions. We are talking about the everyday. If you child is focused on other things while they are eating they are not focused on WHAT they are eating.

Social Learning

Without the routine of eating as a family your child is not learning about the mealtime experience. By sitting together at mealtimes as parents we can teach our child about food. We can enjoy conversation and laughter invoking a positive experience around food and we can learn about food play.

Promising dessert after your child finishes the main meal will teach that the main meal is a lesser food encouraging a preference for dessert type foods. Constantly offering a preferred food if your child hasn’t eaten enough dinner and refuses more teaches your child that food refusal leads to their preferred food. Instead you can omit dessert except for special evenings and include at least one preferred food at every meal time.

6. Nutrition and your picky eater

Nutritional deficiencies is probably the most tricky reason. Inadequate nutrition can be from an inability to correctly absorb nutrients, challenges breaking down foods to extract nutrients or due to reduction in food intake. Lack of nutrition acts like a domino effect. Challenges like constipation, indigestion, vomiting, irritability, fatigue to name a few can cause your child to refuse food. This directly relates back to pain. Nutrition is best managed through direct consultation with a dietician, nutritionist or doctor.

Some signs of malnutrition include:

• Fatigue and lethargy
• dry, cracked lips
• Pale skin
• Constipation or diarrhoea
• bleeding gums
• Poor weight

Take away POINTS:

1. Eating is a challenging skills and there is so much to learn as a child growing up be patient with yourselves and your kids.
2. It is normal to have some food refusal either due to not being hungry, or developmental stages.
3. Create a mealtime routine and have fun at the dinner table.
4. Include at least one preferred food at each meal but don’t offer this food as an alternative.
5. Consult a health professional such as a GP, feeding therapist, paediatrician or dietician for support if your child struggles with nutrition and ongoing severe pain or discomfort.
6. Refusal to eat is so much more than being naughty.

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