Child food selectivity: practical tips to help parents in this challenge

Quantity, location, company, time, when it comes to food, the little ones want to choose everything and create their own rules. Children are exposed to food gradually and may be unreceptive, thus, they develop eating difficulties, such as selectivity.

We all have food preferences, there are those foods that we never like, those that we didn’t like and come to like and also those that we have no interest in tasting. But the boundary between what is common and what is peculiar (and can trigger a series of eating problems) is clear, especially in childhood. That’s why we talked to nutritionist specialist in child behavioral nutrition Ariane Bomgosto to help you identify and overcome the challenge of food selectivity.

Food selectivity: how to identify?

You have to look very closely at children’s behavior to find abnormalities. Ariane highlights that there are two profiles of children that fit into the food selectivity framework:

The nutritionist recalls that “when identifying the profile presented, parents should analyze the nutritional guidelines that apply to each case, exercising their ability to understand the peculiarity presented by their child”.

Autism and infant food selectivity

Children who are on the autistic spectrum usually show different levels of selectivity in relation to their food. This happens because autistics are usually hypersensitive to both external stimuli related to the environment, and to internal ones, influenced by the type of food they are ingesting, so it is necessary to be even more attentive to the quality and style of eating adopted. It is very important to provide environments that help such children to eat more peacefully and feel safe to deal with food, as well as maintain regular schedules.

In addition, as for diet, some indications listed by the specialist are:

• Remove empty foods from your child’s diet: candies, lollipops, jelly beans, packaged snacks. They are an agglomerate of dyes, preservatives and chemical additives without any kind of nutrient;
• Cut the soda: it’s an anti-food. In addition to not nourishing, it also steals nutrients, as it binds to minerals such as calcium, magnesium and zinc, making them ineffective;
• Attention to gluten: gluten, in these cases, must be reduced to the maximum or removed when we want to test the child’s sensitivity to this protein. That’s because it can pass into the bloodstream, activating the body’s reactive system. In addition, it can cross the blood-brain barrier, causing inflammation in the brain.

5 tips to treat infant food selectivity

Once the dysfunction is identified, the best thing to do is seek help from a specialist. We have already said that there is no magic formula to rid children (and parents) of this misfortune, but it is possible to adopt some important measures that, if carefully thought out, will gradually improve children’s food selectivity (and make children taste more food), they are:

1. Do not include the rejected food in the child’s diet if the child has a possible food aversion to it.
2. Do not compare the selective behavior in relation to food manifested by the child with another child who presents a different behavior, especially on public occasions and in a vexatious way.
3. Encourage the child to create a diary of food emotions, in which he can write down what each food brings to him when he eats it. This diary can be colored and work on visual appeal. For example, on the one hand, there may be the image of food and, on the other hand, what the child feels when imagining himself eating them in the form of “smilies” showing feelings such as “disgust”, “sadness”, “anger” or “anguish”.
4. Instead of asking directly whether or not the child liked the food, ask him to describe it using food attributes such as temperature, taste and texture. In this way, she will be developing her perception of the senses used when eating. This will help you get to know your taste buds better.
5. Above all, you have to be patient and not impose anything on the child, forcing him to eat food will not change your relationship with him (at least not for the better). You have to be careful and creative when introducing new foods.

Child food selectivity, eating disorders and other problems

Child food selectivity does not cause eating disorders and problems, but a selectivity framework can lead to more serious situations by triggering the poor relationship that the individual develops with their own food.

The possible consequences are:

• Development of nutritional deficits related to the lack of nutrients present in rejected foods.
• Social isolation caused by difficulty in going to places that do not offer accepted food options.
• Impairment in the development of masticatory muscles due to possible atrophy of the little used oral motor system.
• The child’s distance from the universe of foods and possible development of aversion to other foods, increasingly increasing the selectivity framework.
• Transferring the difficulty in dealing with their food and what they feel at the moment to the parents. That is, children who begin to blame or withdraw from their parents due to the fact that they do not realize that they can and want to help them deal with their selectivity.
• Worsening of the relationship with food in the long term, impairing the child’s ability to learn to make food choices suitable for their body.
• Development of depression and frustration caused by the child’s difficulty in dealing with their own eating behavior, which can lead to food-related behavioral disorders such as food phobia.

Well, may all this go far away and family meals are always moments of pleasure for everyone involved! Nothing like a hearty table full of options for you and your family to enjoy, right? With all the precautions taken, the food selectivity framework will hardly develop in your child. Also check out how to make your children eat vegetables without grimacing.