How to deal with children who are picky eaters? 5 tips to get rid of picky eaters

Everyone will experience and face children being picky about food. For example, when I was a child, I particularly disliked eating condiments such as onions, and I also didn’t like eating vegetables, etc. However, these vegetables are often one of the most necessary nutrients for children’s growth. The more you force children to eat, the more they will dislike it. So here I share five tips for you to try to see if you can improve your baby’s appetite.

Picky eating leads to nutrient deficiencies

If there are children in the family who are picky eaters, the most worrying thing is whether they will cause malnutrition problems, especially since children are picky eaters and usually refuse to eat vegetables and fruits such as green peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and bananas, which happen to be the main sources of dietary fiber in the daily diet. Therefore, in addition to various vitamin and mineral deficiencies, picky eaters are also prone to constipation symptoms, which in turn affects intestinal health. The intestine is the largest immune organ in the human body. Once the intestine is unhealthy, many diseases will follow.

Get rid of picky eating nutritionists with these 5 tips

Seeing their children being picky eaters, many loving parents will first explain the righteousness and persuade them earnestly. If that doesn’t work, they will try to coax and trick their children into eating. However, this hated food will usually be spit back into the bowl after being bitten twice and covered with saliva. From then on, it will be difficult for children to accept it again. In order to save trouble, related dishes will probably not appear on the table again... However, this way of dealing with it will also encourage children's picky eating behavior. Why not try these 5 points!

- Change the taste

Carrots and green peppers, these ingredients that always rank high on the picky food list have one thing in common: they all have strong odors! Therefore, the solution is to change and cover up these special odors. The ingredients can be cooked into fragrant curry, or paired with meat to make stews or hamburgers, and the acceptance rate will immediately increase greatly.

- Improve taste

Sticky okra and yam or soft loofah and winter melon are often listed as unacceptable because they are not crispy when bitten. At this time, the taste can be easily improved by changing the cooking method. For example, baking or air frying can make the ingredients crispy and refreshing, or you can simply chop the ingredients in a food processor, mix them into the thick soup, and eat them unknowingly.

- Pleasant dining atmosphere

Eating alone with the TV always makes me feel lonely, lonely, and cold. Even the food tastes bland, and I am even less likely to eat food I don’t like. Studies show that enjoying the meal can greatly improve picky eating behavior. You can listen to some music instead of watching TV, and chat about what happened throughout the day to make the meal atmosphere relaxed and happy. Naturally, you will be willing to eat anything when your appetite is stimulated. Let’s wait until the whole family is seated for dinner today before we start together!

In addition, it is not recommended to beat or punish children who are picky eaters. Otherwise, when the child sees this food in the future, he will associate it with negative memories, and it will be even more difficult to convince him to eat it. You might as well try again when everyone is in a good mood.

- Know the benefits of food

We often hate someone because we don’t know him/her well enough (but more often we find that we are not suitable for each other because we know him/her too well…). The same is true when it comes to food. You can choose a weekend to go to the supermarket or vegetable market with your family, or let your children be your sous chef and participate in the cooking process. While learning about the original appearance and advantages of the food, they can also increase their interest in food, which will increase their acceptance of the food.

- Be a good role model

If the child is still hesitant about whether to eat the scary broccoli and carrots after using the above four methods, then you should use the last trick to end picky eating, which is to set a good example to convince the child to eat. Children's behavior is mostly learned through observation and imitation. In addition to parents, the objects of imitation can also be brothers, sisters or other children. You can show the child eating with relish, one bite after another, and basically the child will be willing to eat the food that he was originally afraid of.

What causes picky eating?

Children’s own factors:

1. After a child is one year old, their self-awareness begins to develop rapidly and they show a strong sense of independence. They like to "do everything by myself" and will resist some of the feeding arrangements given to them by adults and insist on eating according to their own wishes. Therefore, they will not eat when it is time to eat, but will continue to do what they want to do.

2. As children's sense of taste develops, they will develop certain preferences for the taste of food, such as sweets, fried foods, or soft foods that can be eaten without much effort.

3. Out of the natural self-protection function, in order to avoid the harm of some new foods to themselves, they will refuse some new foods or accept some new foods slowly and in small amounts.

4. Children with different temperaments will have different reactions to new foods. For example, easy-going children will quickly accept a new food and like to keep trying new things, but they will also have the problem of getting tired of the old and liking the new. For some children with difficult temperament, they are very sensitive to new things and it is difficult for them to accept a new food. Therefore, it is difficult for such children to achieve food diversification. For children with slow temperament, they are slow to accept new things, so they are slow to accept new foods, and they eat slowly. They often act indifferent to food, as if it doesn't matter whether they eat it or not.

Parental family factors:

1. Parents neglect the cultivation of children's normal eating habits and are too accommodating and permissive to their children. Children do not develop a fixed place to eat, and parents chase them to feed them, which encourages children to develop bad habits of being picky eaters.

2. Parents intentionally or unintentionally show their preference for certain foods in front of their children, and children are influenced by their picky eating habits and naturally imitate them.

3. Parents pay too much attention to their children’s health and often force their children to eat certain nutritious foods, which causes the children to dislike these foods.

4. During the stage of adding complementary foods, parents do not pay attention to feeding their children a variety of foods, which makes the child's taste buds not adapted to and unacceptable to many foods. For example, adding complementary foods too late causes the child to only like liquid or paste foods and not hard foods. Adding complementary foods too early can easily cause children to be allergic, and thus artificially reject some foods, resulting in monotonous nutrition.

5. The mother's partiality for certain foods during pregnancy and lactation can also cause some children to have a preference for certain foods, because the taste of food can be passed on to the child through breast milk or amniotic fluid.

6. Failure to develop good eating habits and lack of interest in eating.

7. The dining atmosphere is not good. Parents put too much pressure on their children, over-emphasizing that their children should eat more, or parents watch TV or talk about other things, which interferes with their children's meals.

8. The types of food and preparation methods are monotonous. Some parents do not prepare meals for their children. The food is too rough, and the taste and color are monotonous, which cannot arouse the children's appetite and causes them to refuse the meals.

9. Usually eat a lot of snacks and therefore have no interest in meals.

Disease factors: When a child is sick, the digestive system is affected, such as slower intestinal motility, less secretion of digestive juices, and less secretion of salivary glands, which naturally leads to a decrease in appetite. This is also a self-protection mechanism for children. For example, the lack of certain nutrients can also cause children to be partial or picky eaters, such as zinc deficiency.

The dangers of picky eating in children

Nutrition experts point out that children's picky eating and anorexia are one of the causes of anemia, rickets, scurvy, low immunity, angular cheilitis, hyperactivity, hand and foot cramps, bad temper, and crying. Children who are picky about eating high-calorie foods are prone to obesity, and children who don't like to eat vegetables and fruits are prone to constipation. The specific hazards are as follows:

1. The human body needs many nutrients, such as protein, fat, inorganic salts, vitamins, etc., but it is impossible for all of these substances to be contained in one or several foods. Therefore, picky eating cannot meet all the nutrients needed for children's growth, leading to nutritional imbalance and children's inability to grow and develop healthily and quickly. Studies have shown that malnutrition, eating less or excreting more, and picky eating are most likely to cause potassium deficiency.

2. Picky eaters often play while eating, and often take more than an hour to eat a meal. This not only affects the intake of nutrition, but may even cause gastrointestinal dysfunction and affect digestion and absorption. If not corrected, the child's growth and development may be delayed or even stagnant.

3. Children do not take in enough nutrients such as carbohydrates, protein and fat, are underweight and grow slower. Studies have found that the incidence of low weight in picky eaters is twice that of babies with a normal diet.

4. Being picky about food can cause children to lose their appetite, which in the long run can lead to malnutrition and nutritional anemia, reduced disease resistance, and susceptibility to infectious diseases and digestive tract diseases.

5. Picky eating can also cause various vitamin deficiency diseases. For example, not eating whole-fat dairy products, egg yolks, beans, liver and other foods, or not eating carrots, tomatoes, green vegetables, etc., can cause night blindness due to vitamin A deficiency. In severe cases, it can cause corneal opacity, softening, ulceration and even perforation, eventually leading to blindness. Lack of trace elements such as zinc, chromium, copper and selenium may cause visual impairment and myopia in children.

6. Children who like to eat meat but do not eat fresh green leafy vegetables, tomatoes and fruits may suffer from skin diseases due to lack of vitamin A, vitamin B and vitamin C. Scurvy may also be caused by severe lack of vitamin C in the body. In mild cases, the gums may bleed, and in severe cases, it may cause subperiosteal, intra-articular and intramuscular bleeding. Children will suffer from limb pain, refuse to be hugged, and their limb activities will be affected. In severe cases, fractures may be caused.

7. Not eating foods rich in vitamin D such as fish, shrimp, egg yolks, and mushrooms can lead to vitamin D deficiency. If not supplemented and treated in time, mild symptoms include sweating and crying at night, while severe symptoms include convulsions and bone deformities such as "pigeon breast", "O"-shaped or "X"-shaped legs, etc.

8. Picky eating affects children's intellectual development. The intelligence development index of normal children is 14 points higher than that of picky eaters. Picky eaters are also prone to inattention.

9. Food also plays an important role in the development of children's personality. Nutritional imbalance is likely to cause children to develop extreme personalities. Studies have shown that excessive intake of acidic foods can affect children's personality and psychological development, leading to autism. Children who are malnourished in early childhood are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior than well-nourished children.

In addition, parents often use threats, scolding and other methods to force their children to eat. This not only fails to correct the child's picky eating habits, but also causes the baby to develop a rebellious mentality, which will make the parent-child relationship tense in the long run.