My DS6 has classic sensory overexcitability, including tag phobia and extreme food pickiness. I'm not worried about his nutrition, but the range of things he eats is absurdly narrow.

This has become problematic for our foodie family family. If we serve something not on his 'list' he won't eat it -- he'll just go to bed hungry. This happens several times a week even with go-to kid fare like pasta, pizza, hamburgers, etc. We never push him and just tell him to eat or not hoping that he will come around. The "when they are hungry they will eat" advice has failed us!

Has anyone found a good way to deal with an absurdly picky gifted kid?

Ul.H.

Have you already been to a pediatric Occupational therapist?
That's a great place to start. You may have to try a few before you get a good fit (so what else is new?)

Cheaper if your insurance doesn't cover it, is to try the 'Transforming the Difficult Child Workbook' by Lisa Bravo approach. First you notice everytime he shows the smallest hint of flexibility and adventurousness away from the kitchen. Wait for him to praise himself for his adventurousness and for 'going with the flow' Then start praising those same behaviors in the kitchen. If that doesn't work you'll have to read the book and teach him how to do a 'Reset' when he breaks a rule.

Look on the bright side - you are doing great a great job not making a fuss over his current behavior. That means it's likely not an attention-getting bid. So that leaves an unusually large biologically based hurdle or a lack of 'inner fortitude' to overcome the normal sized hurdles that everyone has with certain foods.

Is he loosing weight? Falling off his growth chart line? Having hunger based meltdowns? If not you can just keep going the way you've been. I think it's hard for adult-eyes to have a feel for how much is enough for little ones.

Shrugs and more shrugs,
Grinity

I was the overexcitable picky eater kid notorious for rejecting cheese toast because the melted cheese was wrinkled.

I had to leave home to get over being a picky eater. It took years, but what finally did it for me was my roommate in Beijing that summer. She was in culture shock, and she was was a picky eater. I found her annoying, and didn't want to be anything like her. So, I joined the expeditions to visit ethnic minority restaurants in search of snake soup. Too bad it was out of season! I had discovered I liked eel during my two years in Taiwan (by eating it before I knew what it was). I figured snake would be about the same.

So, there's hope, but the timing is problematic.

Hi,
Sorry to not be encouraging, but in case it helps you feel better this is an area where I have totally failed. Our DD8 will only eat a small number of things (such as cured meats (!), chicken, a particular kind of local bakery bread, most fruits (!), pretzels and other salty snacks, and any kind of dessert). And the list keeps getting *shorter*!!!!!! as she gets older--what's up with that? Also she's getting much pickier about clothes and so now won't wear any of the pants, shorts, skirts, or shirts that she used to--just loose-fitting, soft cotton knit dresses with as few seams as possible.
My approach to food is to try to get her to eat different stuff but not to make a big deal if she doesn't want to do more than taste it; we're hoping eventually it will change. As long as she gets some protein, fruit, and milk every day and takes her vitamins I'm thinking and hoping that's good enough to not be unhealthy. DH wants to push it more but it really is a tremendous struggle and when he decides to make an issue of it some evening I can tell you those are not happy nights in our house. I hope nobody is offended by my lame parenting, but I think you would have to live through it to realize how difficult it can be to get some kids to eat something they don't want to.
We are not foodies and so I think it would be harder for you, but I can tell you my boss is a foodie and has a kid who I think eats even less different things than DD. So you are not alone! I think they were worried about his health and so were trying to get him to eat protein bars and drinks (like Odwalla) for awhile but am not sure how well that worked out.
Best wishes,
Dbat

One of my kids will go hungry rather than eat something he doesn't like (I'm the same). When he was a toddler, there were times when weight gain was a challenge. My solution is to give my kids stuff they like, within reason. Dinner was often a miserable time for me as a kid, and I want to make it more pleasant for my kids.

Our rule is that the kids have to try something once. If they don't like it after a small but real bite, (not a tiny nibble), they don't have to eat more. Everyone discovers new foods that way. I think that this approach helps keep them open to new foods.

Other than that, I don't generally force my kids to eat things they don't like. I don't generally eat foods that I don't like, so why should I expect my kids to? Sometimes this means making a different main course for someone because s/he doesn't like lasagna or whatever. When this happens, I substitute something simple, like yoghurt or a scrambled egg. Still hungry? Eat an apple or a plum or some cheese and crackers.

Others may object to this approach, but it keeps mealtime stress levels pretty low. My goal is to teach healthy eating habits, not win a (pointless IMO) battle over eating what's put in front of you. OP, I'm NOT accusing you of fighting pointless battles! I'm just anticipating potential criticisms.

One thing I've learned is to stop assuming my kid likes 'kid food.' In reality, he enjoys steak, chicken just about any way you make it (not a huge fan of fried though), pork chops, pork ribs, shrimp and just about every veggie under the sun. He also decided he loves orzo... I just make sure to include at least one thing I know he'll like in every meal I cook, and ask him to taste anything new.

Added: I have a very sensitive stomach and can throw up if I eat the wrong foods (inherited this from my dad). Other foods make me feel bad without nauseating me. Fats on meat and mayo are examples of foods I can't eat. When I was younger, I was more susceptible to being pressured to eat foods I didn't like the look of and got sick a lot more often than I do now.

If you don't have this problem, it's probably hard to understand that it's preferable to go without than to eat something you don't like that might also make you feel unwell. Why bother?

This is another reason for why I tend to give the kids what they like.

I'd never advocate anyone doing it this way, but fwiw...

DW was a picky eater who began spending the summers at an uncle's house as a child. She was served whatever was prepared for that meal. If she didn't eat it, it went in the fridge. When she was hungry, that meal came out of the fridge. At the next mealtime, everyone else was served fresh food, and she was served her previous leftovers. If she refused to eat it, it went back in the fridge. Wash, rinse, repeat. Needless to say, the offering became less appetizing every time.

There was no negotiating, and no sympathy. When she became upset, there was a rock outside she could sit on until she was done crying. She spent a lot of time on that rock.

As horrible as the experience was, she credits him for turning the behavior around, and she's thankful for it today. She's a major foodie and attended culinary school.

UH, I don't have any great advice re how to get your ds to try more foods (other than seeking out a sensory OT for suggestions)... but just wanted to add one thing to the suggestions already offered up - sometimes young children refuse certain foods because they cause them actual pain/discomfort/etc when they eat them - this happens sometimes with kids with food allergies - they will refuse to eat a food and the parent thinks it's just a kid being a picky eater, when really what's happening is they have eaten that food at some point and it made them feel sick.

I am not trying to say that's what's up with your ds, but just wanted folks to be aware if they are seeing picky-eater behavior and also seeing other symptoms (random hives, stomachaches, flushed cheeks) then it might be worth paying close attention to the types of foods they are refusing to eat.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Ds3 is not at all picky, but he's a very light eater, we'd been worried about gain a long time before he started to loose weight beginning about 9 mos ago, when my milk went back to colostrum. This got flagged as a real problem about 6 mos ago, and became a serious concern about 4 mos ago, when a possible cause other tan light eating was ruled out.

We got a lot of weaning talk from some quarters, but if I refused him milk, he'd refuse to eat anything else at all, so I went back to my gut on that one real quick.

I can't say we've really fixed it yet, but we are seeing improvements with a few of the most recent things I've tried. None of the suggestions we recieved (except here ;)) helped, and for the most part, they made it worse. The one exception is the leftovers thing described above, which we now do in a slightly differenty form.

So, we're still in the trenches, but this is what's helping for now...

This website:
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/pork-products/2209/2

And stuff like:
http://library.thinkquest.org/11226/main/c14txt.htm
Which can be searched for by googling "digestion of _____" pretty straitforwardly.

An absolute moritoriun on ANY discussion of digestion not including nutrition. This has been known to piss off ECEs and science center digestion interpreters. I'm happy to piss people off if my child eats. If an apple leaves anything's bum as poo, I say "but did it have the peel on, 'cause if so, the Vitamin k absorbed would be MUCH higher" Trust me, it pisses people off, but it's important, because DS doesn't want to have to pee/poo any more often than is strictly necessesary.

Occaisional praise when eating well. Not every time. Just sometimes. Especially praise about him to someone else, especially if I can catch a chance when he thinks I don't know he can hear. This was hard at first, becasue it happened soooo rarely. At first it was "Hey, [name] ate half a cheese slice by choice this morning!" once a week or so. ug.

When we are out, I bring a wide variety of snacks. He gets to pick, once he's picked, he has to finish it before he can pick again. Leftovers go back in the bag, untill he finishes them. This can take all day, and does not apply to mealtime, just snacks. But since when we started he almost never ate at mealtimes, it was pretty intense. Some days it means he only eats one rasin all day. But it keeps him from just asking for things and not eating them. If he wants to *look* at an apple, he has to finish eating the rasins. If he wants to ask what part of a pig bacon comes from, he has to eat the rasins, too. I won't discuss any food other than the snack available, and I will only discuss that snack if he's actively eating it. Once he finishes, he gets to talk about anything he wants until we get to the next snack or meal time, at which point, as long as he makes a reasonable effort to eat, he still gets to ask about anything, including food.

At mealtimes, I put tiny amounts of food on his plate. 3 macaronies, for example. If he asks for something, he gets a tiny amount. He gets about 3 choices before he has to eat something he has chosen. He does not have to eat what I put there UNLESS he is eating only one item, then he gets about 3 tiny servings, and is then to eat something of my choice, just a nibble. It seems counterintuitive, but it works. I think he gets overwhelmed by larger ammounts. This was his suggestion, multiply refined. He always gets a very small plate (usually a saucer)

We cook together a lot, becasue he loves loves loves cooking. Don't believe anyone who tells you a kid will be more likely to eat it if they cook it. They may, however, be more likely to feed it to guests, little brothers, or passing squirrils.

If he wants to eat, and we are in a place where there's a rule about not playing while eating, we try to find neutral ground, so that he can play/listen to a book/talk as he prefers while eating. I bring food up to his room, we picnic on the living room floor. The food comes out to the sandbox. Whatever. If he's affraid he might loose his train of thought he'll starve himself. The reality is that knowing I'm willing to let him do this means he usually is willing to sit and talk while eating. Most of the time if sitting is enforced he eats noting, because he's worried about whatever he's been taken away from.

It sounds a bit exhausting writing it out, but I guess I wanted to think it through again, anyway. Mainly, it's just "do the oposite of everything they tell you!"

Probably none of this will work at all for you, since most kids really don't starve themselves, the ones that do are probably just as different from each other as they are from the norm


Man I'm longwinded lately. Sorry.
-Mich

I wasn't considered a picky eater at all (and people would comment that I ate my veggies with enthusiasm) but at some point started "refusing" bologna and hot dogs (they made me throw up, as an adult I suspect it was the nitrates??) Also fried food. People thought it was weird to have a kid that would only eat one french fry reluctantly and get teased but not eat any more... My mother threw on a hamburger when the others had hotdogs. Her father had alot of stomach issues so she said I had "his stomach" in a nice way.

Generally as I grew to adulthood I just don't like alot of preservatives/fat people think I'm being snobby or concerned about weight but if I eat something and throw up I'm not having fun and don't care to repeat this, so I avoid. I am still called the one with the [insert surname] stomach and just do what I need to do.

So I guess this is a long-winded way of agreeing with the others that especially if they are willing to go to bed hungry, there might be something physical about it.

Good luck!

This is not an issue we have (we have plenty of others!) but Ellyn Satter's books are highly praised both by nutritionists/experts and parents.

My eldest was an extremely picky eater, refusing to eat solids in any meaningful way until forcibly weaned at 2.5 and even then continuing to consume as much of her calories as milk or fluids as she could get away with.

Over the course of nearly 7yrs old we offered her mostly only the few foods she would eat, never commented one what she ate beyond possibly "wow you were hungry today!" and being full of praise if she would try a bite of something new and never forcing more if she did try something and then refuse. As she got older we forced less fluid and insisted she eat a reasonable volume of meals (of foods we knew her to like). By almost 9 we had 10ish family meals she would eat without complaining.

And then we put her on an elimination diet and "surprise" there was almost nothing left that she wasn't quite happy to eat... She likes her lunch box much better on her diet! Her behaviour is vastly improved, her LDs seem less severe. All those years we spent slowly training her into a "healthier" diet while watching her development slowly become more and more abnormal...

I made a turkey sandwich for DD4 the other day, the one food she seems to eat consistently. Knowing her tendencies, I made it as perfectly as I could, but after I cut it in half I noticed one side didn't look quite as good as the other. Still, both halves were definitely the same sandwich.

I brought it to her on a plate and she took one glance, pointed at the "bad' side, and scream-cried about how she doesn't like "that kind of sandwich." She then took a second look at the other half and gobbled it up.

All that to say, we haven't really figured it out. We often use the dessert ransom technique which works about 75% of time. DD tends to eat a lot of cold food.

Our SENG discussion group leader said that was one fight she never picked since there were so many others, and her children managed to stay healthy. They would finally would eat big meals when they got hungry enough.

For our DS, pickiness was anxiety-driven. We worked on it AFTER about 6 months of ABA therapy, a form of behavior therapy, which improved his coping skills and his compliance with instructions in other ways first. Then we tackled the food by asking him to eat two bites of something we were eating. It was not pretty, but it got much better, and the range of things he would eat improved.

I know that for some people there are sensory issues, but for our DS, the big problem was not sensory. He still gets anxious about unfamiliar food, but the range of what he will eat is more in the normal level now. We still work frequently to expose him to new dishes and new ways to present food.

I don't think that I would have been happy to leave this issue alone. Being able to eat with colleagues in restaurants is a job-getting and job-keeping skill; being the guy who orders plain noodles is not endearing to peers once you're in your 20s.

DeeDee

This is such a hard issue, I have "average picky" eaters: 2 kids AND hubby. My hubby has ssues with meat stemming from being tricked into eating a lot of different meat products (cow brain, gizards, blood sausage, etc.) as the child of two no-nonsense farmers. Both he and his brother have texture issues. Sometimes, I refuse to cook for ANY of them after a new recipe gets rejected. I am not picky at all...love a huge variety and always have.

I do see there can be biological component. My mom is a picky eater, as is my sister, and one of her kids. My neice litetarally only ate maybe 4 foods until she was about nine. Her parents picked their battles as every meal was a potential minefield. So have hope!

We choose a sensible approach. Kids need to take a no-thankyou bite. We don't trick our kids. They have water with meals and unlimited milk after they've eaten a fair amount. We do not do juice...they must eat their fruit. We try to understand if the
pickiness is coming from anxiety (as DeeDee noted),
taste, texture, sight or plain obstinance. Though I wish we didn't we use the
dessert bribe, we totally do.

There can definitely be a biological component, in my observation. My own DD astounded us. When she was a toddler we wouldn't order separate food for her at a restaurant. One of us (usually me) would order a kid-friendly dish and share with her. It's worth noting that pickiness wasn't an issue at that time, and she'd try anything. The phase came later.

The astounding thing is this: we'd order something that we KNEW DD would like. Maybe it was similar to something we had at home, or maybe it was something she'd had at that restaurant before. She'd take one little taste, and refuse to eat any more. Later that night, whoever had ordered that dish (again, usually me) came down with a mild case of food poisoning. Every time. How she detected there was a problem, I don't know. I sure wish I did.

But don't rule out a psychological component, either. DD once got a case of food poisoning from a piece of pizza (apparently it slipped past her detector), and it was more than a year before she'd try pizza again. That's an interesting one to explain to other moms.

Also, giving her medicine has been, to put it mildly, an an adventure. DD has a talent for quickly progressing from mild sinus issues to bronchitis, and she has such an aversion to taking medicine that she has, at times, made herself so upset she threw it up. Whether the medicine tastes good or not makes no difference. Because so much of her medicine is cherry-flavored, she has transferred that aversion to all things cherry. Honestly, what kid doesn't love a cherry popsicle?

Along the same lines, my brother was preschool aged when he hold of our mom's meatloaf sandwich, which was coated in grandpa's homemade salsa. Nevermind spicy, it was many years later before he'd eat anything red.

Dude - sounds like you got a 'super taster' on your hands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

My husband is a supertaster and it can be rather annoying to the rest of us, lol.

Just wanted to point out that there are a couple of evolutionary factors at work here. One is that food really does taste different to children. Kids prefer sweet foods and hate foods that taste bitter to them. In the hunting gathering days that helped our ancestors survive childhood, since toxic plants tend to be bitter. As we get older, we tend to enjoy bitter foods more (though I still avoid arugula).

And pre-adolescent kids have an aversion to risk-taking that, again, helps them survive, but would be abnormal or dysfunctional in an adult. So, file those traits under normal, yet infuriatingly inconvenient.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, stories, and suggested resources. I've got a few new ideas and more realistic expectations thanks to this thread.

Ul.H.

My DD9 is the same. It's exasperating. At least she likes her multivitamin. (sigh).

My DS7 is a little less picky - AND he'll drink breakfast shakes. Bingo!!

You can add all kinds of stuff to shakes (and they're delicious Fruit, protein powder, flax oil, liquid vitamins, almond milk, etc etc... problem solved. Now if only I could get my daughter to drink them too(she says they make her feel too full).

I just started a new thing today. If ds5 doesn't like what I have served, he is welcome to go and make a "sandwich" (his version which rarely includes bread or condiments) and serve himself.

This is a reaction to a number of issues the little sweetie has. He is a picky eater, he has low muscle tone and will lay around all day if we let him, he has low motivation and wants me to do everything for him, he is a perfectionist and is afraid to try.

If the child had his way I would be following him around all day doing his bidding.

I make lovely meals and always include something that he would like, even if he won't believe me that he won't find the taste/texture offensive, it's there!

Interestingly, there are actually variable genetic components to this. Some of us "taste" the bitter compounds in veggies more (and it varies--there is more than one such compound). If your child seems to blanch at veggies, there is research to suggest that kids who are genetically sensitive to these compounds will accept bitter veggies more easily if they are served with masking dips high in salt. Really! Actual research. I just read it for work and am passing this interesting tidbit along. BTW, kids who are NOT sensitive to these compounds do NOT eat more veggies if they are served with dip!

Also, these tendencies are reduced with repeated exposure--in other words, we can overcome them. Other interesting findings: kids will eat more veggies if they are served with water and if the size of the main course serving is smaller.

if its dinner time, I send mine to bed w/o dinner if they are picky about it. When a child is hungry enough. they will eat anything.

If it's breakfast or lunch, I tell them that it will be their dinner

A few other people here have mentioned that this isn't the case. Personally, I would rather go hungry than eat something that will make me sick or make me feel bad. Not everyone has the same digestive system.

My DH's father tried this route when DH was a child. DH forced down the entire bowl of rewarmed oatmeal for lunch, then threw it up all over the table.

You are fortunate that your children don't have serious food aversions.

I see food pickiness as a play for control similar to tantrums, nothing more

... not always, though. I agree that food pickiness that has no rhyme or reason to it, and seems to wax/wane with a desire for attention is probably in that category. However--

I'd be a very wealthy woman if I had a dollar for every person I've met who thought that their child was just being "stubborn" regarding food preferences...

only to find out that the child had true IgE-mediated allergies confirmed by a board-certified physician, and occasionally for which epinephrine was prescribed.

In some cases, these children were actually saving their own lives by refusing to eat particular foods.

The most common offenders in this context, by the way, are:

nuts, fish/seafood, mustard/seeds, eggs, and milk.

Very seldom are children truly allergic to fruits or vegetables, or to food additives. My suggestion to parents of very picky eaters is to ask the child to describe the BASIS for the aversion. Descriptions of metallic tastes, itching, or extreme 'bad' smell are red flags. I have a shellfish allergy; believe me when I say that shrimp cocktail smells to me like the local landfill in August. I realize that it doesn't smell that way to others-- but my body seems to know that shrimp is the smell of death for me.

Intolerances are another matter; and gluten-based foods, preservatives/dyes, sulfites, and dairy products top that particular list.

Seriously, though; if your family has evidence of atopic conditions (asthma, allergies, or eczema), and especially if you've seen any of those things in the child in question, it might do to make note of particular food aversions.

We never make food a power struggle. Ever. My husband and I both were forced to eat food allergens as children. Our parents felt incredibly guilty about that.

I will respectfully disagree, and I am talking about food that they are not allergic [ thankfully they do not have any ].. medical conditions are different than pickiness which is what is being discussed.

You are comparing apples and oranges.

I've always been a picky eater, and I can attest that I have never, ever used food as a means for a power struggle or to control someone (not as a parent, not as a child). In my experience, the power struggle is far more likely to rest with the parent.

If I didn't or don't want to eat something, it's because I simply don't want to --- either because it might make me sick or feel unwell or because I just don't like it. I'm not allergic to much of anything --- I have intolerances, and they're completely different from allergies. Other people here have said the same.

My father felt the same way you do. As a result, it wasn't until my 20's that I discovered the reason I felt like crap ALL THE TIME was because I was lactose intolerant. I cut (lactose-containing) dairy from my diet and like magic I feel so much better.

Also, the whole 'clean your plate thing'... I personally feel it's a terrible terrible thing to teach a child. We (well, nearly everyone) are born with the built-in ability to discern if we are hungry or not. Forcing children to eat things they don't like, or when they are not truly hungry, over and over again, for years, destroys that built-in mechanism.

I, personally, try to cook meals everyone in my house enjoys, and thankfully my children aren't super picky regarding healthy foods (both kids like broccoli, carrots, peas, califlower, spinach, etc) but no one is required to eat, ever. If I cooked something new, they are not allowed to simply declare it 'yucky' or 'gross' - we make them at least taste it. If they don't like it, no worries.

People are missing the point here... there are levels of sensitivity below pure allergy. Some kids have food sensitivities that have real measurable physiological and psychological effects that don't involve vomitting, GI problems, rashes, etc. Young kids can't really explain this and may just appear to have unreasonable aversions.

My oldest has never eaten either pasta or cheese and usually refuses to eat bread. We rolled with this since he is good about eating veggies and meat. He is 2E with behavior issues. Since switching to a Gluten/Cassein free diet most of these issue have disappeared. His earlier food pickiness was a form of self medicating...

So while some food battles are purely over control, you should at least consider whether there may be more going on than that.

I don't see it as a power struggle and personally don't care if the child eats or not but the family eating habits will not revolve around one's child's "intolerances".

Eating "intolerances" is too much like chore "intolerances" or public behavior "intolerances".

It looks like a path for a child not to do what they are told and to get away with it.

What they do or do not want to eat as adults is up to them but as a child they will have the choice of eating what is put before them or not to eat. Food will always be available regardless.

Personally, I don't see why parents make food a battleground. Offer a variety of HEALTHY foods, and allow your children to eat what they like. Encourage them to try new foods, and do not punish them when they don't like something.

Food can be AMAZING. I would hate for my children to grow up resenting mealtimes, all because I was determined that they always eat what I felt like they should. I make sure they have a vitamin every day, just in case they are missing out on something, but honestly, I've not met kids that have access to healthy foods that refuse to eat ALL of them.

Usually what I see is a parent that's allowed their children to get a taste for crap food (chicken nuggets, soda, candy, etc) and then have to fight for their child to eat any sort of veggie. I am of the opinion that if you make sure ALL the options are healthy, you don't have to fight any more.

I've read that a parent may have to present a child with a new food seven times or more before they accept it-- even when there are no food allergies or sensitivities involved. I've found that to be true with my own children.

What I do is keep encouraging them, and eventually they do eat most things happily. If there's something they really don't prefer, I try to accommodate them by picking meals we'll all enjoy. When they refuse to eat a new food item or even an old one, I remember that it might be due to something physical and tread carefully.

As for me, I will fight to my dying breath to avoid biting into a plum.

The only thing I have refused is cooked bat on a stick during one of my deployments. Mostly because it looked very undercooked.

Epoh & raptor_dad: Yes, exactly.

We keep crap food to a minimum here. My kids will happily munch on raw peppers and carrots, and one of my them will eat enough broccoli for everyone if you let him. My eldest rarely eats meat. He just doesn't like it, and we respect that.

I grew up dreading mealtimes. It didn't do me any good.

Sorry Cawdor, you're just wrong when you presume that all intolerances are made up "intolerances." An "intolerance" landed my father in the hospital and nearly killed him when he was six because another adult pushed him to eat something because "it won't do you any harm!" I guess she thought my dad just didn't want to do as he was told when he said he didn't want to eat it. "Intolerances" have made me sick many times and even hospitalized me on one occasion. Were we making it up just so we could "get away with" not having to eat those foods again?

No, you are wrong making a statement without any proof backing up .. the burden of proof is on you for saying these "intolerances" exist.

My time as an ex-Drill Instructor had me break "intolerances' from a lot of kids whose parents never had a handle on them and never took time with them and just let them do "whatever"

Teaching 17-19 year old men how to shower, shave, put clothes away, behave in public, handle money, and other basic life skills showed me what types of parenting work and what does not.

The parents of those who had a lot of "intolerances" were always amazed of what they saw after 8 weeks with myself and the other instructors.

This is getting annoying. If you take a position that a commonly known condition doesn't exist, it's up to YOU to prove your point.

Try this Wikipedia entry and the umpteen peer-reviewed references it cites. When you've disproven all of these studies, you can come back to me and tell me that we all made it up.

Then don't respond ... I for one believe most of these "conditions" are pretty much bunk based on my experience "curing" a lot of kids from them in 8 weeks.

and


1. First you said that I had to prove that they exist. I did that and you didn't respond. Then you said that "most" of them are bunk. Which one is it? Do you think they exist or not? Did the researchers listed in the Wikipedia make it all up?

2. This is getting frustrating in part because it uses the same flawed logic in the gifted-kids-don't-exist argument that many schools peddle.

Cf.

• Most kids learn to read when they're 6. I've never met one who could read when he was 2, so therefore those kids don't exist and your kid is making it up.
  .
• Most people can eat animal fat. I've never met someone who could get sick when he eats it, so therefore no one like that exists, and your kid is making up his illness.

Maybe this comment belongs on the Gifted Adults thread, but personally, it's very frustrating for me when people can complain about a fundamental error in thinking in one area and completely overlook the same error in themselves, in a different area. Call it a failure of imagination or willful ignorance or an inability to admit a mistake or arguing for its own sake. Either way, the flawed conclusion is the same.

It seems to me a lot of this is simply missing the point. Just because a kid could eat a food without a major medical incident, and just because they will eat it under conditions of sufficient duress (famine, say, or being in the military), doesn't mean that they aren't having a very real, very unpleasant subjective experience. Some people taste chemical compounds that others don't. (Remember that experiment in biology class?) So why put your kids through that, unless your overriding goal is just to prove that you're the boss and make them knuckle under?

I was picky about vegetables as a kid, and to this day I have been unable to overcome my aversion to asparagus and squash. Both induce mild nausea in me. A wide range of vegetables also taste unbearably bitter to me, unless they are picked very young and are very fresh. Yes, I could have choked these things down if I'd had to, but my parents wisely chose not to make me miserable. I now love vegetables, provided I have control over my choices.

Comparing this to kids who have been so badly parented that they don't know how to make their bed or shave, or have an "aversion" to anything besides junk food, is a red herring.

I'm not, actually. How do you KNOW that these are foods to which every child is "not allergic?" You don't, yet you assert that the difference is clear to you. Perhaps you were making a statement only about your own children? That wasn't clear.


I certainly didn't dismiss your perspective or say that it is NEVER the case. I have had experience with kids for whom it is definitely a power struggle. That does not make the assertion invariably true. You disagreed that your statement was "not always" so.

I'm simply pointing out that food allergy (and, for that matter, food intolerance) are measurable, real phenomenon, some of them with measurable, real damage done to an individual thanks to repeated exposure. Feeding a celiac gluten is a recipe for many later health problems, some of them life-threatening, and a child with asthma attacks provoked by a latent food allergen can cause airway remodelling over time. I do live this every day of my life, and I assure you that there is no neon sign above a person's head which lists probable food allergens, nor one that says "this is an allergic reaction in progress, proceed accordingly." (I wish, actually. I'd also like one that flashes for contamination in food before I eat it, thanks. )


I mentioned specifically which foods are red flags for deeper examination in that particular context, and which are not. Food "pickiness" generally seems to center on color, texture, or bitterness (as in vegetables), and those things are not really cause for concern without much more overtly "allergic" symptoms, or other GI distress.

Those things tend to NOT have much overlap with foods to which IgE-mediated allergy are common, nor do they overlap much with foods that are commonly implicated in well-understood intolerances such as celiac sprue or lactose intolerance.

Food refusal is a common thing in very young food allergic children, and is even reasonably common in children school-aged who develop a food allergy (usually to fish, nuts, or crustaceans).

Food refusal is quite different from a food fetish; a child that will "only eat ____" is not at all the same as one that refuses to even touch fish or anything that has been on the same plate.

Do I think that most food pickiness in children is "allergy?" Of course it isn't. I think that true allergy presenting this way is relatively unusual. But far from unheard-of.

... and furthermore, you've never seen a kid with food allergy as a drill instructor, Cawdor.

They are medical DQ's. Automatic, just like asthmatics and diabetics.

Let me be the first to add, however, that much of what the general population claims as "allergy" is anything but, and a lot of those are nothing more than food preferences with over-entitlement disease.

I also agree with the idea of providing a variety of healthy food choices-- as a regular thing-- and then not worrying too much about 'how much' beyond that. I don't make family meals revolve around pickiness, but nobody is forced to clean their plate or even "try" everything, either.

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'll just pop in here with my experience. My son refused to eat anything with peanuts/peanut butter because he didn't like the smell of it. We thought he was just picky, and we offered him many different PB-containing foods/treats. He wouldn't eat them. Turns out he has a life-threatening allergy to peanuts, which we discovered when he had an anaphylactic reaction after eating one peanut when he was 5. So I do not ignore my kiddo when he tells me he doesn't want to eat something because he doesn't like the smell of it.

My kid is an extremely limited eater, with significant anxiety about food, a number of texture aversions, and a huge number of food allergies.

Our pediatrician has told us to leave him alone. I would rather have him deal with being the adult who orders a hot dog at a fancy business dinner than him being the teen who dies from eating a hidden allergen.

I also think he deserves the same basic respect as the adults in our house, which means that we don't knowingly serve foods that we know someone dislikes, and we don't try and force or shame each other about our aversions. (I don't eat meat, my wife hates mushrooms. Neither of us like olives). She does not make meat dishes and I don't make things with mushrooms, even though we both love those items.

Mine But you haven't met us, so your statement stands!

(he refuses to eat unhealthy foods, too. We've had some funny moments where people tried to get him to eat candy and cake and stuff, because they were sure he was just gunning for treats. Interestingy he does demand to COOK treats by preference to healthy food... but doesn't eat either

-Mich
(our experience is really kinda off topic, since DS is decidedly not picky, just a light eater)

Will prob. write more later, this is an interesting thread, given the issues we've been having. But just wanted to be annoying on this detail first...

Wow. Soo much I wanna say.

Background:
I have multiple life-threatening food allergies, and spent extended periods of time in hospital for asthma as a child. (enough I got all nostalgic seeing a kid at the hospital library with her in-hospital tutor, I did most of a couple or three years that way ;)).
My son has one mild non-IgE mediated allergy (yup, non-IgE, still a true allergy, just a different kind, rashes and blood oh my, oh my, but a different timing, and little chance of true anaphalaxis, but don't get me started on THAT. Key point: does not show up _consistently_ on skin prick tests, if he has others, they will be impossible to id except through challanges) Oh, and he has brittle asthma, he may not get true anaphalaxis, but anaphylactic asthma, yes, entirely possible
My son has two (count 'em) OTHER medical conditions which shouldn't, but possibly could cause discomfort when eating. Neither is generally considered significant, but there's that little "but" in there. And, there's two (FCOL)


So... I'm pretty convinced by the argument that REAL physiological issues can lead to food aversions. Absolutely convinced that that is often the problem... and our case looks like it MUST be something real, after all, exactly how many possiblilities did I list up there for physiological causes?

Also important: my son is NOT a picky eater, he is a light eater, who has failed to gain weight/height in a way that meant we had to address the issue. He has always eaten a wide variety of foods, just one bite of each. That includes cookies and cake.

Erm... actually, there's one more possible physiological cause...

Longstanding habit.

As far as I can tell, once we hit a certain threshold of getting him to eat decent sized meals regularly, he suddenly wants to eat more. As if his stomach was simply not prepared to accept reasonable volumns of food at a sitting.

Getting him over the threshold happened when we started the power struggle. And we're definitly not out of the woods yet, but he's beginning to eat most meals by choice now, and is increasing the size of his meals by his own choice. This is awesome. He ate an entire taco for dinner tonight.

So, I can ALSO see why parents get into the power struggle. They tell you over and over that a kid won't starve themselves. They tell you that at the appointment IMMEDIATELY before the appointment in which they suddenly say "Your kid is starving himself" It's really, really, NOT TRUE. Most kids won't but some do, for a variety of reasons, and reasons asside, SOLUTIONS may involve a power struggle.

Life is more complex than "always trust the kid" or "they're just trying to get away with it." In our case, I suspect, there is a VERY HARD thing that our three year old has to learn to do NOW. I'm trying to respect how hard it is for him to stop doing other things to eat, and how hard it is or at least may be for him to actually swallow. I am NOT going to respect his efforts to exercise his preference to not eat over eating. I need him to eat. That's all there is to it.

(in case you're getting too worried, he has gained weight quite quickly since he started eating, so we even have a little room now for backsliding and having to restart,

I just got a really young guy on disability for an impressive number of really, really bad food allergies along the lines of Michaela.

He would have preferred that he wasn't skeletal.

That being said, most food "allergies" aren't allergies. I'm pretty sure that you can do blood tests for them.

My son got a bit picky around three. I didn't make a big deal of it. He got on some PBS Kids game that taught him all about nutrition. I think it was called Prof. Fizzy's Lunch Lab. He got his "gifted" on when it came to nutrition. He wasn't even four when he said "Dad, you already had one donut. Those are loaded with transfats that will clog your arteries! Please Dad, eat those only in moderation.".
He has moved on, but on most days he can still tell you what he has eaten, what food groups everything goes in and whether he should have more of something to balance his diet. So there you have it! Relaxed parenting and video games solved it.

I get that this wouldn't work with everyone. My husband has food texture issues and will vomit it he eats a long list of veggies.

One thing we've worked on is being nice about refusing food and finding something thing to eat. Like just quietly picking off the pepperonis instead of going on and on about how nasty they are.

Food education has also been beneficial for my kids. Knowing that eating green things will help my son get muscles actually makes a difference for him. He will often finish his meal, and come to me and inform me that he didn't actually care for, say, the spinach, tonight, but he ate it all so he can be healthy, lol.

HIGH FIVES ALL AROUND!

I have two children who drive me to distraction ...or drink... or something... with their refusal to eat most things. I'm glad to see it's not just me! DH is also very picky, but he doesn't see how it's related.

Yes, children absolutely can love to cook but refuse to eat what they made. Isn't that nuts?

This analogy is an absurd failure. Showering and shaving have nothing to do with eating habits, and every boot camp from every service employs a chow line where each recruit gets to employ choice in what they eat.

Food allergies ARE pretty weird, though. They can appear and disappear and can be grown out of long after people think they are still present. A good allergist will tell you as much. I have extremely bad environmental allergies (confirmed by skin and blood testing, and symptoms) and was tested for food allergies to see if they might be contributing, although there wasn't any strong reason to think I had any. I tested positive for dairy, soy, corn, some nuts, and a few other things as well, despite having eaten them all my life. Only one of these foods gives me any reaction (and it's mild) as far as I can determine. The rest I continue to eat and enjoy with no issue and my allergist's okay. He basically said that people do test false positive for food in the sense that you may test positive without experiencing reactions that you notice or that bother you. It isn't a perfect system by any means.

ETA: BUT! I do have oral allergy syndrome and I have avoided many RAW veggies and some fruits most of my life because of this. I like the taste of all these foods, but they produce some discomfort. I never knew what this was, but as a kid I said I "hated" melon and raw peppers and "was allergic to" pineapple because of it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_allergy_syndrome
I did not test allergic to any of these foods on a skin-prick test which goes to show...something or other.

But it is the reality whether you think it is absurd or not. These young soldier came in with intolerance to certain foods but after a full day of hard work ( the first they have done in their entire life 0 it was amazing how these intolerance vanished in thin air.

I have no issues with real allergies but pickiness is nothing but a power play by the child constantly testing their boundaries and their power over their environment nothing more.

Mine too It's tough. He's the ULTRA picky one, I'll eat almost anything, and both kids fall somewhere in between. Dinner planning is a pain, lol

Oh my gosh, no. It sounds like you weren't picky as a child (some kids aren't). I was extremely picky (I'm the opposite now - I outgrew it), and it was simply because many foods made me feel like I was going to vomit. I can still remember the feeling.