What are the causes of picky eating in children?

Children in their early childhood will have some picky eating habits, but because each child has different physical fitness, living environment and eating habits, the causes of picky eating will also be different. However, parents must correct this phenomenon in time, because picky eating habits, if not corrected in time, will have a bad impact on the child's future life and diet.

1. Influenced by adults' eating habits: A common phenomenon is that children like to eat what their parents don't like. If parents are picky eaters, their children will follow suit. Over time, the children will develop the bad habit of being picky eaters.

2. Bad eating habits: If children cannot eat on time and in fixed amounts, and eat too many snacks, their appetite will be affected. As the saying goes, "food tastes sweet when you are hungry, but honey tastes less sweet when you are full." A child's stomach is not big to begin with, and it takes 3-4 hours for food in the stomach to be emptied. When it is time to eat, he feels hungry and the food tastes delicious. If children do not eat on time, but eat snacks, rice crusts, biscuits, and various beverages at random, there will always be food in the stomach and the stomach will not get a rest. In this way, children will lose their appetite at mealtime, and they will have no appetite for even the best food, so they will naturally be picky.

3. Children’s taste is different from that of adults: children need light, sweet food, while adults’ food is mostly strong in flavor and has a variety of seasonings. These dietary problems did not attract the attention of parents.

4. Influence of diseases and drugs: Various acute and chronic infectious diseases, parasitic diseases, digestive tract diseases, and deficiencies of certain elements, especially trace elements such as zinc and iron, are common causes of loss of appetite. In addition, the side effects of taking various medications during the illness are also a factor.

Countermeasures: Take the following measures to address the above factors

1. Avoid letting adults’ picky eating habits influence children. Parents must set an example by not being picky eaters themselves, thus encouraging their children to eat properly.

2. Find ways to change bad eating habits. Educate your children not to eat snacks, drink less beverages, eat on time, and eat enough at each meal.

3. In order to increase children's appetite, try to make the meal more delicious, change the style, make it colorful and fragrant when cooking, one dish can be cooked in multiple ways, and give it nice names to arouse children's curiosity and interest, so that they want to eat, love to eat, and eat more.

4. During the period when the child is ill, the meals must be light, with more liquid food suitable for the child's taste. Pay attention to the rational use of drugs and try to choose drugs with fewer gastrointestinal side effects. Have your child checked regularly and follow the advice of your health care provider.

The above introduces several common reasons for picky eating. Parents should pay more attention to these issues in life. At the same time, they should also observe more about the reasons that cause their babies to have picky eating. Parents can develop some small methods to help their children change their picky eating habits based on their children’s different personalities and hobbies.