Picky Eating Vs Food Rejection: Autistic Children Struggle More With Food Preferences
Many children become picky eaters as they enter toddlerhood, refusing certain foods because of taste, smell, texture, and other reasons. For parents, it may seem like your child is being obstinate for no reason, and that can be very frustrating, especially as you try to move them from baby food to regular food, encourage them to eat fruits and vegetables, and experience new food that may not be like the food they enjoy the most.
Problems with eating in children on the autism spectrum are significantly different from the colloquial picky eating. While most children become picky eaters at some point, they grow out of it.
Children with autism retain this hyper-focus on certain types of food unless they receive behavior therapy. Nutritional therapy can also help to ensure your child is getting a balanced diet.
Strategies To Deal With Extreme Food Selectivity
Withholding food until the child is hungry enough to eat is a dubious strategy at best – for child on the autism spectrum, such a strategy could even be dangerous. The good news is that there are many positive strategies that can often help with extreme food selectivity. The first step is to clearly document what, when, where and how your child will and won’t eat certain foods. Be aware of sensory issues such as textures, heat, cold, smell and color. Often a pattern can emerge with time that helps to determine the issues involved.
When texture is a known issue, try to introduce new foods in a similar way at first. For example, a new vegetable can be turned into a puree if chunky textures aren’t liked, or traditionally hot food can be served at room temperature.
Desensitization is a behavioral technique that can work well with introducing new foods. Its gradual introduction can help the child to become desensitized to the smell, look and texture of an unfamiliar food. First, try a food that has the best chance of suiting your child’s preferences. It may just sit on a plate near theirs for several nights. The next few dinners, it may be placed on their plate but with no expectation made of the child to eat it. Next, the family may try the new food and show their enjoyment. With gradual introduction with no negative effects may allow the child to eventually try the new food.
Are Picky Eaters Healthy
Not only does picky eating affect a childs health and well-being, it also negatively impacts the social well-being of the child and the family as a whole. As a parent, one of your primary roles is to provide for your child, and not being able to fulfill that role can be stressful, isolating, and extremely frustrating.
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Unusual Eating Behaviors May Be Early Sign Of Autism
Diagnosing autism as early as possible is important, so kids and families can start getting the help, treatment, and support they need. Now, new research suggests that unusual eating behaviors may be an early red flag in childreneven as young as one or two years old.
Researchers from Penn State University found that unusual eating behaviors were five times more common in kids with autism than in those with other disorders like ADHD and learning disabilitiesand 15 times more common than in “typical” kids. In the study of more than 2,000 children , about 70 percent of kids with autism had atypical eating behaviors, compared with just 13 percent of kids with other disorders and only about 5 percent of typical kids. According to the researchers, atypical eating can been seen as early as the first year of life, and kids with autism can have more limited diets by as young as 15 months.
Some of the unusual eating behaviors researchers saw in kids with autism included:
Hypersensitivity to food textures: Kids with autism tended to be more sensitive to foods with smooth and creamy textures , foods that need a lot of chewing , and food that have lumps .
Rigid brand preferences: Some children would only accept one specific brand of food, such as Kraft Macaroni and Cheese or McDonald’s French fries.
Pica: In the study, pica was only seen in children with autism.
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Environmental Problems That Affect Feeding And Eating
Throughout the limited feeding and eating disorders literature , environmental factors primarily focus on sensory processing variables. Children with extreme food selectivity issues are frequently dealing with many environmental factors related to sensory modulation and regulation. Selective eating is defined as eating very small amounts of food and/or restricting foods eaten to an extremely narrow selection of sometimes only one or two items. Selective eating can have significant developmental and health consequences. Extreme selective eating problems are often seen paired with strong negative reactions to the introduction of new foods. Mild selective eating is common in all toddlers and young children according to a variety of studies. It cannot be emphasized enough that the issue of concern for a significant number of children on the autism spectrum is extreme food selectivity.
Extreme food selectivity, when related to environmental and sensory issues, can be addressed successfully in many cases. The place to start is to analyze eating habits and then sensory variables. Gathering information about what the child eats successfully, and about how, when and where the child eats best can provide clues for broadening the childs diet. The following questions should be answered: what foods, with whom, where, when and how does the child eat any foods even if it is just a few foods. Frequently, there is a pattern to what foods the child eats or where the child eats successfully.
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What To Do When A Child With Autism Refuses Most Foods
Once any medical problems have been ruled out, there are some strategies for dealing with a picky eater who is on the autism spectrum.
Be flexible and realize that it may take some time to get a child with autism to latch on to the idea of trying new food items. Even typically developing children take time to try new foods. Think about how long it takes some children to enjoy onions, spinach, bell pepper, and other foods that adults seem to enjoy that perhaps they wouldnt dream of touching when they were children. The same is true for children on the spectrum. Sometimes they just need to mature before they decide that they want to give a new food a chance.
Autism And Food: How To Deal With A Picky Eater
Theyll grow out of it.
Its just a phase.
Dont worry, theyll eat when theyre truly hungry.
Sound familiar?
As a parent of a child who struggles to eat, these phrases might be ones youve heard before. Picky eating is a common part of childhood. So much so that over 50 percent of parents identify their child as picky at some point in their youth. Therefore, when a childs diet starts to narrow or their intake dwindles, many can be quick to dismiss concerns about what or how much a child eats.
Yet not all picky eating is created equal. Traditional picky eating is a developmental phase that coincides with the change in childrens appetite, growth, and increasing maturity. Its fairly common and, importantly, its usually temporary.
Extreme picky eating, on the other hand, tends not to spontaneously resolve and its often not a result of natural development. Instead, more severe picky eating is usually associated with underlying developmental delays or challenges.
This article will help you distinguish severe or extreme picky eating from traditional picky eating behaviors so you can determine how to best help your child learn to eat with ease and enjoyment.
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Use Supplements Designed For Autistic Children
Often when the diet is poor, children with autism can end up with a deficit of essential vitamins and nutrients. Its can be a challenge to get children to take supplements but there are special natural supplements out there that are optimised for children on the autism spectrum. There is also a link between gut health and brain function and many parents have seen improvements after the use of probiotics and friendly bacteria.
Why Is My Child So Picky
Other children develop picky eating habits by modeling their parents fussy eating habits. Picky eating habits are more likely to develop when parents punish, bribe or reward their childrens eating behaviors. The goal for feeding a picky eater should be to try new foods and to keep food from starting a battle.
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Working On Fussy Eating In Autistic Children: Why Its Important
Your child needs a variety of fresh, healthy foods for good health and development, so its important to work on fussy eating. Also, your childs fussy eating is unlikely to go away or change by itself, so ignoring the behaviour probably wont work.
But forcing your child to eat a new food can make things worse, because your child might refuse to eat altogether. So its almost always best to use strategies that encourage a varied diet and help your child gradually get comfortable with new foods.
Your child needs a wide variety of fresh foods from the five healthy food groups vegetables, fruit, grain foods, dairy or dairy-free alternatives and protein. You can find out more in our articles on healthy food for preschoolers, healthy food for school-age children and healthy food for teenagers.
How Can You Tell If You Have Autism
Signs of autism in adultsfinding it hard to understand what others are thinking or feeling.getting very anxious about social situations.finding it hard to make friends or preferring to be on your own.seeming blunt, rude or not interested in others without meaning to.finding it hard to say how you feel.More items
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How To Help Your Child With Autism Overcome Picky Eating
Picky Eating is the common term for what Picky Eaters do. These children are hard to please and to feed in general, but they rarely end up starving themselves. Patterns of over-selecting food are common among children with developmental disorders, but they are also common among all children.
Estimates vary widely among studies, but in a recent report, the estimate was about one-fifth of all children. There are several possible causes of food selectivity in autism.
Behavioral problems that affect feeding and eating in autism and other developmental complications include sensory textures and flavors of food, or they have had trouble chewing or swallowing and unpleasant experiences with food. Therefore, they tend to be less flexible in general, and especially less flexible than most when it comes to food.
Techniques For Tackling Mealtime Issues
Techniques for addressing various mealtime behavior issues are similar but they have to be broken down into manageable steps. Below is a practical guide for parents that will help both parents and their kids achieve their goals and reduce mealtime stress.
Prioritize: Too often parents try to tackle all mealtime behaviors at once. Thats a mistake and just leads to both kids and parents becoming overwhelmed and giving up. When Dr. Lee works with families she asks them to prioritize their goals. Is it increasing the number of foods their child will eat? The amount they eat? Or is it sitting at the table less disruptively? Parents need to identify their primary target.
Start small: No matter what the goal, its important to start with baby steps. For example, when trying a new food with a child, Dr. Lee will begin with a miniscule amount so small the child might not even be able to taste it. If the initial goal was simply trying the food, once the child tries the bite, Dr. Lee would provide significant praise and might count it as the childs no thank you bite. Meaning, Dr. Lee says, you take a bite and then you say no thank you calmly, and you dont have to have it again for the rest of that meal.
Heap on the praise: Praising your child for every aspect of progress is key, Dr. Lee explains. And praise comes in different forms:
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Behavioral Problems That Affect Feeding And Eating
Eating disorders are complex and continue to be studied among various populations. Eating disorders such as failure to thrive, rumination, pica, obesity and anorexia nervosa can affect children with autism spectrum disorders. Children experiencing these problems are at risk for serious health and growth problems that can lead to life threatening consequences. It is frequently mentioned in the literature that individuals with disabilities may be at a greater risk for these types of behavioral eating disorders.
Pica, the ingesting of non-nutritious substances, is a behavior that can start at any point in life under various circumstances. If a child is persistently eating non-edible items such as paper, dirt, or craft items and/or chewing on plaster or wood, an evaluation should be done to try and determine the cause. Obviously the child should be closely supervised and kept away from substances related to this pica behavior. There are multiple causes and treatments for pica. A knowledgeable professional can assess and address pica. Nutritional deficiencies, sensory stimulation, lack of ability to discriminate non-edible items, and relief of anxiety are all possible factors that can lead to pica. If the pica is not seriously health or life threatening, sometimes substituting edible and/or sensory stimulating alternatives can take care of the problem.
What Foods Are Best For Autism
The Gluten-Free, Casein-Free Diet Casein is the main protein in dairy products such as cows milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream. This diet may be recommended to help improve behaviour in autistic children. Some children with autism have a short term decrease in autistic behaviours when following this diet.
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Getting Help For Fussy Eating In Autistic Children And Teenagers
If your child eats in a very selective or restrictive way or seems to have a small or reduced appetite, they might not be getting the nutrients they need. Its a good idea to talk with your childs GP or paediatrician or a dietitian. And its always best to talk with one of these professionals if you think you need to supplement or significantly change your childs diet.
Picky Eating And Autism Spectrum Disorder
A recent study found that around half of teens with Autism Spectrum Disorder are picky eaters, however, there are few differences in symptomatology between teens with food selectivity and teens with more normal eating patterns. Instead, the main difference was in the way that their parents perceived their food selectivity as a problem and had exhausted many strategies to help them eat a more balanced diet. This suggests that there is an intersection between picky eating and sensory processing issues among teens on the spectrum that often isnt talked about.
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Enjoy Your Meals Together
Do you question how to get your autistic child to eat vegetables and other healthy foods? Try to focus on the opportunity to be together and share an experience. Dont pressure anyone to eat, eat more, eat this but not that, etc., and dont make a big deal when he/she tries something new. Your children should eat because they are hungry and they like what they eat. They should like coming to the table, and they should do all eating and drinking at the table. Eating should not be more about what you want than what satisfies your child, so common strategies that use rewards, praise or deal-making can be counterproductive.
- Eventually, youll require your child to at least tolerate the presence of the new food on his or her plate.
- Because youve planned plenty of opportunities to eat and some general rules against between-meal grazing and eating or drinking anywhere other than the table, you can afford to say, No to whining and complaining about hunger at the wrong times.
Top 5 Methods To Help Your Autistic Child Overcome Picky Eating
Here are some ways you can help your child if they struggle with specific issues:
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Autism And Picky Eating
Picky eating, traditional or otherwise, isnt a diagnosable condition with concrete symptoms. Like autism, it exists on a spectrum of severity and there can be many presentations and etiologies.
Research shows that children with spectrum disorders are at a higher risk of feeding challenges and are more likely to experience extreme picky behaviors than kids who are not on the spectrum. Estimates suggest that about 50 to 75% of children on the autism spectrum have eating challenges that are more severe than those that the majority of kids experience.- Autistic kids are more likely to overly restrict their diets and have a harder time learning to accept new foods. Additionally, while most picky eating is transient, autism picky eating is persistent and often worsens over time.