Dr Zucker said: “There’s no question that not all children go on to have chronic selective eating in adulthood”. The majority of kids may have certain foods that they dislike and they may only eat foods that are prepared a certain way. Kids with either level of pickiness were nearly two times more likely than others to develop anxiety symptoms within two years, the study found.
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The good news is that the disorder has been receiving so much media attention lately that better recognition of the problem and effective treatments for it will likely result. These are the kids who typically outgrow their pickiness as they mature. Although many doctors as well as parents refuse to acknowledge it, picky eating is not just a normal phase in the development of a child, it is a serious problem and even has an official name by which it can be diagnosed. A recent study at Duke University suggests a correlation between picky eating and depression, but the study is met with criticism from experts and parents. But, the authors note, their finding that moderate and severe picky eating were associated with a three- to fivefold increase in family conflicts around food suggests these parents were hardly just accommodating their children’s demands.
The study was published earlier this month, on August 3, 2015, in the medical journal Pediatrics.
Does your child struggle to eat food outside his or her comfort zone? He was not involved in the research.
“Eating problems among preschool-aged children are so pervasive that clinicians and researchers often treat them as developmentally normal”, lament the authors of the study, who presented results suggesting the problems were anything but.
Researchers did in-home interviews with parents to evaluate kids’ eating habits and any mental health issues.
While only a small number of study participants have shown symptoms of anxiety, depression and attention deficit disorder (ADHD), parents are being advised to keep a close eye on their little ones while they’re going through their picky eating faze. “They’re very sensitive. And where most people would expect a taste experience would be something pleasurable, for some reason these individuals don’t find it pleasurable at all and so they will avoid it at all costs”, the doctor says.
Researchers said some cases are so severe that children do not eat most of the food items. Two years after the initial interviews and evaluations, another round was done.
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Kreipe recommends parents gently introduce new foods without making mealtime a battle of wills.
