Why are children picky eaters

After one year old, my son will enter an important development period of self-awareness and will show a strong sense of independence. He likes a lot of things, so everyone hopes to develop some habits. However, when parents find that the baby refuses some foods and only eats what he likes, they will have a headache. There are reasons why children are picky eaters. Find these factors and solve the problem in time.

What causes picky eating?

Children’s own factors:

1. After a child is one year old, their self-awareness begins to develop rapidly and they show a strong sense of independence. They like to "do everything by myself" and will resist some of the feeding arrangements given to them by adults and insist on eating according to their own wishes. Therefore, they will not eat when it is time to eat, but continue to do what they want to do.

2. As children's sense of taste develops, they will develop certain preferences for the taste of food, such as sweets, fried foods, or soft foods that can be eaten without much effort.

3. Out of the natural self-protection function, in order to avoid the harm of some new foods to themselves, they will refuse some new foods or accept some new foods slowly and in small amounts.

4. Children with different temperaments will have different reactions to new foods. For example, easy-going children will quickly accept a new food and like to try new things, but they may also get tired of the old and love the new. Some children with difficult temperaments are very sensitive to new things and it is difficult for them to accept a new food. Therefore, it is difficult for such children to achieve food diversification. Children with a slow temperament are slow to accept new things, and therefore slow to accept new foods. They also eat very slowly and often act indifferent about food, as if it doesn't matter whether they eat it or not.

Parental family factors:

1. Parents neglect the cultivation of children's normal eating habits and are too accommodating and permissive to their children. Children do not develop a fixed place to eat, and parents chase them to feed them, which encourages children to develop bad habits of being picky eaters.

2. Parents intentionally or unintentionally show their preference for certain foods in front of their children, and children are influenced by their picky eating habits and naturally imitate them.

3. Parents pay too much attention to their children’s health and often force their children to eat certain nutritious foods, which causes the children to dislike these foods.

4. During the stage of adding complementary foods, parents do not pay attention to feeding their children a variety of foods, which makes the children's taste buds not adapted to and unacceptable to many foods. For example, adding complementary foods too late causes children to only like liquid or paste-like foods and not hard foods. Adding complementary foods too early can easily cause allergies in children, thereby artificially rejecting some foods and resulting in monotonous nutrition.

5. The mother’s picky eating habits during pregnancy and breastfeeding can also cause some children to have a preference for certain foods. Because the taste of food can be passed to the baby through breast milk or amniotic fluid.

6. Failure to develop good eating habits and lack of interest in eating.

7. The dining atmosphere is not good. Parents put too much pressure on their children, over-emphasizing that their children should eat more, or parents watch TV or talk about other things, which interferes with their children's meals.

8. The types of food and preparation methods are monotonous. Some parents do not prepare meals for their children. The food is too rough, and the taste and color are monotonous, which cannot arouse the children's appetite and causes them to refuse the meals.

9. Usually eat a lot of snacks and therefore have no interest in meals.