Archive for To parents of Picky Eaters

Will he grow out of it?

{ July 9, 2008 @ 1:14 pm } · { Causes, Living with it, To parents of Picky Eaters }
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Question:

My son  – 10 –  is a picky eater.  He will eat….

- raw carrots
- cut up apple
- plainly cooked chicken breast, chicken nuggets
- sausages
- bread (not butter or jam)
- roast potatos
- some crisps and chocolate
- apple juice and orange juice (no bits)

He can’t have food touching.

His mum thinks he will grow out of it and that we should do nothing.  I am concerned because I see the worry on his face when he is asked to eat something, he will gag and he suffers socially.

Should we try something/do something.

I don’t think he will simply grow out of it…

Any advice gratefully received

Answer:

It is unlikely that your son is going to grow out of this if he seems to be hyper-picky. You didn’t tell me a whole lot about your son, but this is what I will tell you about those of us who tend to grow into Adult picky eaters:
  • We became this way at a very young age…in infancy or before 2 or 3 years old
  • We would rather starve than try a bite of something we find offensive
  • We are almost all super-tasters (doctors can do a simple test to determine if someone is a super-taster, and a google search will give a couple of at home tests that can be performed). Supertasters have been proven to be excessively sensitive to a substance in vegetables that makes them taste bitter…extremely so to most supertasters (like myself)
  • Many foods that others perceive normally, we often don’t see as being food (example, some view a plate of spaghetti as look like a plate of worms, or peppercorn bacon as bacon that has been sprinkled with dirt, or a salad as a bowl of tree leaves).  Since our brain doesn’t process the item as food, we have a strong repulsion to the idea of eating that food, just like most “normal” people would have an aversion to eating sticks, grass, and other non-food substances
  • We often have an extreme sensitivity to textures and often shut out a food we normally like if the texture is different (i.e. someone won’t eat mashed potatoes [mushy] even though they will eat potato chips [crunchy]) Pickyness lasts beyond a few years. Most toddlers go through a picky stage, which they will eventually grow out of.
  • Diets are extremely limited, beyond the normal picky kid phase. For instance, they might only eat one brand of bread or peanut butter, and will be able to tell the difference if you try to trick them
  • Often have extremely sensitive gag reflexes, and will gag if forced to try a food that he/she does not like

This is just a sample of things that usually define most of us…especially when we were children.  Below I will give a few suggestions:

Some of us have a disorder called Sensory Integration dysfunction.  You can also do a Google search on this to find out a bit more information, but to give you a basic summary, people with this can either be hyper or hypo-sensitive.  Most of us are hyper-sensitive if we have the dysfunction.  The basic definition is that your senses work correctly, but your brain processes them incorrectly.

Touch: may have an extremely difficult time wearing shirts with tags, or socks with seams because it hurts or feels weird. Also texture of foods would fall into this category
Sound: Extreme sensitivity to noises
Taste: Dislike of foods with strong tastes
Smell: Can smell things that others cannot smell
Sight: Sensitivity to light and colors

If you suspect your son might have this disorder, you would need to seek help from an Occupational Therapist. Some studies have shown that kids who get treatment for this can get a little better, but diagnosis and therapy before a child is 5 is where it seems to be most helpful. After that point, it doesn’t seem to work as well.

Outside of this, I cannot offer a whole lot of help if your desire is to cure your son of this.  What we tell parents is most important is that you accept and love your child despite this condition.  Understand that for those of us with the disorder, no environmental factor could have helped us.  One study was done on identical twins separated at birth and both, despite being raised by separate sets of parents, turned out to be picky eaters. Others studies too, are starting to find that this condition is a genetic one.  Force feeding and other punishments seem to only make the problem worse, and serve to give the child psychological problems with food as well.

We suggest that you offer the child a wide range of foods, but allow him to eat as he chooses, making sure that there is always an acceptable food to him on the table.  Do not make any issue out of what the child does or does not eat.  If there is a food similar to a food your child already likes, you might attempt to offer him a similar food, making sure it is similar in taste and texture that he already likes. Try to become good at explaining tastes and textures to your child so you can attempt this, but again, don’t make a huge deal out of it if he will not try it and especially if he doesn’t like it after trying it.

Socially, it is important for you to stick up for your child, especially to parents who try to force feed him and make a huge deal of things. We have all felt the social stigma of this eating disorder, but somehow have managed to get through years of thinking we were the only ones.  Now, with a group that has reached nearly 2000 members, we know we aren’t the only ones. And we are certain that this is just the tip of the iceberg. The Food Network shot a segment of us this past weekend, and once that show airs, we are certain of reaching thousands more. Eventually, we want to get this disorder studied and classified so that maybe people will stop being so overly sensitive about how we eat. It will also give parents a way to tell others why their child eats a certain way and hopefully a way of not feeling so guilty for the way their child eats.

I would also like to note that almost all of the members on our site are relatively healthy…at least as healthy as our non-picky peers. We often don’t get common illnesses as often as those around us. Almost all of us are brilliant in some capacity (extremely smart or gifted). And we are in general all extremely successful at life.  We have also found members who have lived well into their 80s and 90s with no real health problems, despite an extremely limited diet.

Ultimately, I would encourage you to join our forum. We do have other parents of picky eaters on there, and an entire section devoted to parents of picky eaters.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me and I will do my best to answer them.

Jessica

Picky Eating Teenager

{ June 9, 2008 @ 12:18 pm } · { To parents of Picky Eaters, Uncategorized }
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We often gets posts from moms of picky eaters. A desperate cry came to me from one such mom who’s son had stopped eating a lot of food he had previously eaten.  I do not wish to post her email to me, but I will post my reply.

First off, if you are harboring feelings of guilt as to your sons condition, I will ask you to try and let them go.  So many parents blame themselves for this disorder, and the evidence just doesn’t support that.  All sorts of clinical studies are now showing that eating preference, especially in extreme cases like ours, seems to be mostly genetic and only slightly environmental.  For whatever reason, our bodies just reject different foods.  I can tell you that personally, There are many things today (at age 29) that I wouldn’t eat at age 15 or 5.  There are also many things that I would eat at age 5 (McDonald’s Chicken Nuggets for instance) or 15 that I won’t go near now.  Most people go through this and don’t really notice it, but for us it is such a major thing because adding or removing a food makes a huge difference for us.

Second, I see that your son is 14.  While that is still extremely young, you also need to try and let go of his eating somewhat.  (This sentence may sound harsh, and I’m sorry, but it needs to be said.)  No one, least of all a teenager, wants someone harping on them all the time about what they are doing, eating, etc.  Trust me…I completely and totally understand your concern for his health, but as for me, the constant harping on what I was and wasn’t eating only lead to one thing for me. Anorexia. Seriously…all the comments about how unhealthy my eating were eventually caused me to rebel into not eating at all. I got so incredibly tired of it…being told I would die, being told I would be fat, being told I would never succeed, etc…psychologically it put a huge toll on me which lead me to a “real” eating disorder.  Again, I am not trying to be mean or harsh with this stuff, but rather give you a realistic view of what happens when people try to control an aspect of another person. It almost always leads to rebellion. 

Third, while I don’t recommend candy and brownies as a meal, I say at 14, your son needs to start making those decisions on his own. Perhaps give him control of packing his own lunches or buying what he wants to at school.  You might find that if he has that control back, he will start to make some wiser choices on his own. But if he doesn’t, that is still his decision to make. In 4 years, he will legally be allowed to move out and make whatever food choices he wants. It would be better he learn while he is still under your care.

Lastly, it sounds to me like you are extremely understanding.  I commend you for that, because it is really hard for someone without this disorder to understand what living with it is like. Your son likely feels guilty and depressed about the way he eats.  He may not be ready to face that yet, but he will likely in time become ready to deal with it. Don’t force the issue, but make sure he knows that it isn’t his fault that he is that way. There are others out there like him and there is strong evidence that this is a genetic condition that one day will be studied and hopefully “cured.”  But until then, he needs to learn to deal with it in the best way he can.  I went to college, I did well in school, I am successful as an adult, I am happily married, etc.  I went away to college at age 17…anorexic and extremely depressed.  But I got through it and was better for it on the other end.  Don’t hinder your son…even in your mind…because of this condition. I am sure he is completely capable of surviving in college and life thereafter. But you will have to let him go to find that out, and I bet you will be surprised at how well he will do. 

I don’t have a great answer for you. Your son’s eating is in the level we call EPE or extremely picky eater.  But so is mine, and I have managed to do a lot of things despite it.  Not only that, but given my poor eating habits, I am still a relatively healthy young adult.  I need to lose about 20 pounds, but I am working on that through exercise and what little dietary stuff I can do.  I guess ultimately, my best advice is to try not to worry a lot about it.  Make sure your son is eating something and not losing weight, because that is more dangerous really than eating too much.  His age is what makes it the hardest because I can remember at 14 how I felt about my parents getting on me or even just trying to talk to me about stuff.  But if you think he is open to talking about it, just ask him what you could do to help…be that leaving him alone or working with him to find foods he likes.  Let him pick out things at the grocery store that he thinks he might want to try.  Let him decide what he wants to take for lunches.  If he is open to talking to a therapist, try and find a good and understanding one (they are out there, though hard to find).  And the therapy shouldn’t be to force him to eat new foods, but rather to help him accept himself for who and how he is.

If you have further questions for me or there is anything I can do to help, please feel free to write me back.  I am sorry this isn’t more definitive.  I wish so much that I could give you a name of a doctor who would make it all better. I’d be willing to fly over to the UK if there was a promise of that waiting on the other end.  Unfortunately, we simply don’t have anything like that yet. The different methods of therapy, etc. that have been tried by all our different members have pretty much all come back moot.  You are of course welcome to join our group and read the different things that have been tried. Your son would be welcome to join as well if he wanted to.

I do wish the best for you and your son.

Jessica