5 Reasons My Kid Doesn’t Eat

Alisha, a writer for Your Kid's Table, is used to fielding questions about children's eating habits.  She's so used to hearing complaints about picky eaters that she's certain she knows why our kids don't eat.

A variety of factors can contribute and the reasons can evolve over time. There is value in doing some detective work because getting to the root of the problem will then give you the tools to help them eat more food, more consistently. In my experience and specialized feeding education, I believe there are 5 different reasons kids refuse to eat. At the same time, it is common for several of these underlying issues to affect a child’s ability to eat well at the same time.

Here are the top 5 reasons:

1. Medical
   Although this may seem like the most obvious reason kids don’t eat, it is often the most overlooked.  Well, at least it isn’t always explored deeply enough.  When kids have a well documented medical condition or are visibly sick, it is obvious that their eating can be affected, but sometimes there are more subtle issues.  Two of the biggest culprits are acid reflux and constipation.
2. SensoryFor many “picky eaters” sensory processing plays a big role in their refusal to eat foods. Simply put, if something feels gross in their mouth or on their hands, they aren’t going to eat it. The fancy therapeutic term we give for this is tactile defensive. Clues that your child may be refusing foods because they are defensive are: gagging, squirming, or seeming frightened by the sight, smell, touch, or taste of a particular food.
3. Mechanics
   This one might be a little tricky for parents to figure out because you need to consider how well your child is chewing and swallowing their food. You can probably rule this out if you have a child over 2.5 that safely and easily transitioned onto table foods. Kids will start refusing to eat foods because they don’t know how to chew it or they are scared they are going to gag/choke/throw up again on this food. They will often stick to a limited diet because they know they can manage them safely.
4. Routine
   This can be a touchy subject for parents, we all have our comfortable eating habits and routines that we have already established for ourselves as adults. We often continue to do what is comfortable for us with our kids, but it isn’t always what leads us to teaching them habits that we really want them to have. If you don’t have regular meal times, pay attention to how frequently they are eating.
5. Behavior I put behavior at the end of this list for a reason. I want this to be the last thing that you consider. A lot of people advise parents that kids are being “bad” or that the reason they are refusing to eat well is behavior based. Although, behavior plays a role, it is actually a small percentage of kids that actually refuse to eat based solely on behavior. Now, please don’t mistake me, even the youngest of tykes will learn quickly what they need to say or cry or throw to get what food they want. All kids go through different stages of development when they are testing boundaries and you can bet they will test it at meal times, too. After all, this is one of the few areas where they actually have some control. But, these kinds of little phases are short lived and aren’t severe.

Do any of these fit your picky eater? Alisha cautions that if none seem to fit, you should definitely check into the “medical” reason with your doctor. After reading the article, I think routine is my son's issue. Now that I have a starting place I can look for ways to fix it.

To find your starting place, check out all the reasons kids start refusing to eat in detail at Your Kid's Table.