How to correct children's picky eating habits?

Many children do not eat well and have no attraction to food. Some children only like to eat meat or sweets. These are symptoms of children's picky eating and anorexia. If this continues for a long time, it will be very detrimental to the children's physical and mental health. There are many reasons for children's picky eating and anorexia. In fact, the eating habits instilled by parents and the children's psychological factors are the two main reasons.

If you want to solve the problem of your child being picky about food, you must first know the reasons why your child is picky about food:

1. A child's sense of taste and smell is most sensitive between 6 months and 1 year old, so this period is the best time to add complementary foods. If it is missed, it will affect the formation and development of the child's taste and smell, causing difficulty in weaning, and the baby will lose the adaptation process from liquid food - semi-liquid food - solid food, leading to typical anorexia.

2. Some children will eat endlessly when they come across their favorite foods, such as snacks, cold drinks, etc. When faced with this situation, some mothers can easily lose their principles and allow their children to overeat. Because children's digestive organs are still very delicate, blindly eating a certain food can easily damage their spleen and stomach, resulting in children suffering from food poisoning and anorexia.

3. Children's picky eating and anorexia are often influenced by their family members, especially their mother. The family’s attitude towards food can easily cause children to reject certain foods. If the food prepared for children lacks variety, it will also make children lose their appetite and they will never eat this food again.

4. When a child does not like to eat something, if the family members use both soft and hard methods because they are worried that the child is lacking nutrition, and put pressure on the child and force the food into the child's stomach, this feeding method will make the child have bad associations with the food, and eventually form a conditioned reflex: feeling nauseous at the sight of the food. The mother's overly hasty approach will not only fail to correct her child's picky eating habits, but will make the habit worse.

Parents should help their children develop good eating habits when they start eating. They should feed their children at regular times and in fixed amounts, and not let them eat too many snacks and drinks. This is not only unhealthy for their children, but also because snacks have a heavy taste. Getting used to eating snacks will affect children's attraction to meals.