What should I do if my 3-year-old child refuses to eat? This is what parenting experts say

If a child doesn't eat, the first thing you need to do is to find out the reason. It may be that the food is not tasty, the child has bad eating habits, or the stomach function is not good, etc. When you find the root cause, the solution will naturally come out.

1. Improve the variety of meals

3-year-old babies are at a stage where they are extremely curious about new things, so if they eat the same or similar food for every meal, the baby will definitely not like it. At this time, pregnant mothers should use their brains to improve the daily meals. You can cook the same dishes but arrange them in different shapes to increase the baby's interest in eating.

2. Zinc deficiency

Zinc deficiency in babies can also lead to symptoms of anorexia. If a 3-year-old baby shows symptoms of not wanting to eat for a long time, parents can take the baby to the hospital to check whether it is caused by other diseases. Generally speaking, babies do not want to eat because of zinc deficiency, so parents can supplement zinc for the baby in time.

3. Appropriate constraints

3-year-old babies are still in a playful stage, so they are not very concerned about eating. At this time, parents should give appropriate constraints to let children develop the good habit of eating on time. Don’t spoil the children blindly, and don’t chase the children to feed them, which can easily develop the habit of anorexia in babies. Secondly, parents should not give babies too many snacks before meals to prevent them from being too full to eat.

4. If your baby does not eat well, has a poor appetite, and has no appetite, and you have ruled out the possibility of playing too much, partiality, or picky eating, you should be alert to whether the child has zinc deficiency. You can take your child to the hospital to test serum zinc. The normal value of serum zinc is 75-150 mg/L. If it is lower than 75 mg/L, zinc supplementation is necessary. Zinc plays a huge role, and its deficiency can lead to poor appetite. Zinc is an essential trace element for the body, participating in the metabolic process of more than 50 enzymes. It plays an important role in human energy metabolism, protein and nucleic acid metabolism, and endocrine hormone metabolism. When a child's body is deficient in zinc, his or her physical development, intellectual development, digestive function and immune function will be affected to a certain extent. The most prominent impact is digestive dysfunction, leading to symptoms such as poor taste, loss of appetite and anorexia.