“He doesn’t eat anything”, “my son is a very fussy eater”, “before he tried everything” or “there is no way with vegetables or fruit”. These are some of the many complaints that pediatricians are used to hearing daily in their consultations. One of the main concerns of mothers and fathers is the feeding of their children, especially if this could be limited or insufficient. Something that contrasts with the latest study on surveillance of childhood obesity, prepared by ALADINO with data from 2019, which warned that there is 23.3% overweight and 17.3% obesity among schoolchildren from 6 to 9 years of age. .
“The problem is that the child who does not eat actually does eat, but not what the mother wants and how the mother wants,” explains Dr. Gabriel Ruiz Soler, a specialist in Pediatrics. The doctor refers to one of the many cases that come to his office and sends a reassuring message to the parents: “Relax, your child is not going to become malnourished, what you have to do is improve his relationship with food.”
The first step in dealing with a seemingly picky eater child requires understanding why this rejection is occurring. There are several reasons, the first of which is related to evolution, neither more nor less.
Although it was the psychologist Paul Rozin who first described it in 1976, the writer Michael Pollan gave it a name and titled his book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. It is a paradox about how the advantage of omnivores when it comes to being able to access a greater variety, and therefore quantity, of food turns against them. The reason is that they must be careful and take special care with the unknown. An instinct that begins to awaken from the second year of life and causes this rejection to try new foods.
This, in turn, coincides with a key moment in his growth: the development of self-affirmation. Children from two to six years old, says the psychologist Esther Blanco, are in the key stage to build their assertive skills. In the relationship with parents, this phase translates into rebellion and denial, including food impositions in which mothers and fathers insist.
Another reason may be related to taste experiences from breastfeeding. The article “The development of eating habits in infants and young children. Sense and sensitivity”, published in the Revista Pediatría de Atención Primaria in 2006, states that infant feeding conditions their future preferences for certain foods. The reason this happens is that the baby is subjected to a greater catalog of flavors, since, unlike formula, breast milk varies as the mother’s diet does. Thus, breastfed children are more likely to accept more varied foods.
However, none of these reasons need be a real cause for concern for parents. As long as the son or daughter is healthy and their parents try to handle the situation as the experts recommend. That is to say, insisting on the importance of a varied diet, setting an example of this, but without falling into practices such as punishment or blackmail. “The rejection of new foods is part of the development of a year and a half child, but if it is not managed correctly it will give rise to pathological pictures where children do not want to taste, but neither do they want to see or touch, beyond a dozen food”, explains Dr. Ignacio Ros, a pediatrician specializing in child nutrition. To which he adds: “On the contrary, with adequate advice, these mild symptoms will be transitory and without repercussions.”
These conditions, the result of their development or simple rebellions, represent some of the most common responses that are usually found after children who are picky eaters, as they say. However, it is important to differentiate these manias or tantrums with other cases with a certain severity. An example of this is sensory disturbances, a type of hypersensitivity towards textures that even causes vomiting and retching in children. Or food-related phobias caused by some kind of trauma, as happened to Ashton Fisher, an English boy who ate little more than bread and yoghurt.
There may also be other causes that have to do with medical conditions, often accompanied by clinical symptoms. “If a child really does not eat, that is, he eats so little and so poorly that it affects his development, the cause must be sought, but there is no point in forcing him to eat, scolding him, punishing him or getting angry with him,” concludes the Dr. Ruiz Soler.
