Picky Eaters
How do I know if my child doesn’t like the taste, texture, smell or look of a food?
Did you know that you have up to 4,000 taste buds (sensory receptors) on your tongue?! In fact, the tongue is the most sensitive organ of the whole body! It not only picks up taste, especially bitter or sour foods ,but also texture and gives us information to protect our body from poisons.
The olfactory and gustatory (smell and taste) systems work together to protect us from eating anything that will make us sick — a protective system that is essential for survival. Can you imagine not being able to tell if chicken has gone bad, or if that smell is delicious or repulsive?
Some children have trouble discerning between different smells or they perceive certain food smells as garbage! Sometimes, the delicious chicken roasting in the oven does not smell delicious to everyone else.
How do I know if my child doesn’t like the taste, texture, smell or look of a food?
It can be hard to tell which part of a mealtime is worrying or distressing for a child — some children avoid foods before they’ve even tried them! Sometimes, we feel the need to pressure a child to taste a food before they decide if they like it or not. In reality, feeding or mealtime is a multi-sensory experience. It involves the touch or tactile system to know if a food is slimy, sticky, wet or dry. Some children will refuse to try foods purely based on the look, colour or texture of a food. Some children prefer dry, plain foods (crackers or chips) to wet foods (fruit or vegetables) based on the feel, look or how many times they’ve been exposed to or seen that food.
If you notice a child smelling foods multiple times before having a try, they might be more worried about the smell of foods. Children who are worried about different smells (mint, cleaning products, perfumes) might also be more particular about preferring low scent foods, or foods that always smell the same. For example rice crackers and plain chips tend to have a milder scent than spaghetti bolognese or curry.
Challenges navigating textures can also be related to underlying difficulties with oral motor development. You might notice your child tends to push foods out of their mouth after appearing to want a bite. In some cases, this can be an issue with your child’s ability to hold food in their mouth, and move the food around their mouth with their tongue — which may mean they’re actually having trouble chewing and navigating those foods rather than they actually don’t like the foods itself.
What’s the link to behaviour?
Research shows a correlation between picky feeding and strong food preferences and sensory or oral motor issues. Difficulties with oral motor development, sensory processing preferences and exposure to different textures, smells and tastes all impact a child’s ability to enjoy and successfully eat new foods.
How to support your child if they’re a picky eater:
Start a food journal
Many families that we see feel like their child eats absolutely nothing! But once we investigate a little further, many children are eating at least 10 foods in each category — Carbs/starch; fruits or vegetables and proteins/dairy.Expand on preferred foods
Take food your child is already eating and expand out. You can present it in a different way — for example if your child loves hot chips, can they try hot chips with some bacon and cheese? If that’s too ambitious, can they try a different brand of hot chips? Can they try oven baked instead of fried? If your child is only eating chicken nuggets — can they try some chicken lunch meat or steamed chicken?Play with your food!
Kids love to play — it’s how their brains are wired. They use play to work out the boundaries of what is safe and novel. Our brains are also wired for safety and after a certain age, everything new is wired as ‘scary’ or ‘unknown’ which also equals “unsafe”.Play is the way children make sense of new experiences that can be scary. Make those experiences part of their normal everyday routine. By incorporating food into play, you make that scary broccoli into a fun forest to explore, or turn those carrot sticks into skis that you can slide down a mash potato mountain. Many of us are taught, “Don’t play with your food.” But think about how boring that can be for some kids. You might just find those carrot skis fly right into your toddler’s mouth.
Meal time doesn’t start at the table
Your child has likely been feeling a rollercoaster of emotions all day, and that tends to come out when they get home. Think about your appetite after a long stressful day at the office, or if you’re feeding stressed about how many bills you need to pay this month. Does your appetite drop? That’s how many of our children react after a long day at school or daycare — they might be stressed, upset and not in a good place for mealtime.If your child is having frequent meltdowns in a day or a week, you may find their appetite has been affected. That’s because when children are having a meltdown their nervous system goes into ‘fight or flight’ mode’. Their parasympathetic system (rest and digest) system turns off, and they go into action mode. That’s why children need to be in a ‘calm, alert’ state before they feel hungry. Try having a bath before dinner time, or some soothing music on before a meal to help feel calm and relaxed at the dinner table.
Research shows a correlation between picky or problem feeding, food preferences and sensory or oral motor differences that impact a child’s success at meal times.
If you have any additional questions or concerns, contact our friendly team of occupational therapists, speech therapists and physiotherapists. We can give you specific recommendations on how to support your child to learn, play and develop into their potential!