When people think of “behavior” or a “behavior therapist” they often times think of meltdowns and tantrums. I receive plenty of questions on talking back, hitting, and biting. However, behavior is truly anything that we “do”. This means that behavior are also things such as potty training, eating meals, and contributing to conversations.
Today we are going to dive into a major issue that comes up often which are feeding troubles. Feeding troubles can happen at any age, but I’d say most parents contact me for support in this area when their child is between the ages of 3-8. This is typically when parents begin to notice that their child is struggling in one way or another. However, I’ve even helped with teenage and adult feeding concerns as well, as we address other factors that could be in play; such as body image.
When talking about feeding trouble, we generally lump it into one of two categories. The child is either struggling with food refusal or food selectivity. Food refusal is defined in the literature as insufficient calories by mouth to meet his or her caloric needs whereas food selectivity is more accurately displayed as when a child consumes only select foods (i.e., foods from select food groups, textures, or both) or refused certain liquids (e.g., milk) but ate foods without difficulty.
There was a new study that was recently published by California State University which explored how effective certain interventions are with these two feeding troubles within the pediatric population. What they found was that (interestingly enough) food selectivity was treated with more effectiveness than food refusal.
While interesting, this also aligns with my own professional experience. When treating feeding troubles in pediatrics, I find that most fall into the food selectivity category. However, I also find that it is often treated with much success. Once we find an effective intervention, the food selectivity is resolved. On the flip side, when I have encountered food refusal, it often times correlates to a medical or emotional component that requires cotreatment in order to resolve the issue. This, too is something that needs attention for our kiddos to be their best; in its own method.
The hope here for parents, is that if your child is struggling with food selectivity, treatment for this is available and quickly effective with the right interventions. If you are interested in more information, you can fill out a meet and greet, and I’d love to chat with you this week! If you think food refusal is at play, I’d recommend I do an assessment to determine if that is the case – and recommendations moving forward.
I wanted to leave you with one additional piece of hope. Healthy food is a blessing from the Lord; meant to strengthen our bodies, and bring us both health and enjoyment. It is a blessing. While a gift, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that appreciating that gift isn’t something I’ve learned until adulthood. As a child, and even the child-heart of mine still today, often wanders for a chocolate bar for dinner. Food selectivity does not mean your child is not thankful, a ”brat”, or spoiled. It does not mean that you are not a good cook, do not expose them to a variety of food, or are doing anything wrong. It simply means we need to lean in and teach them that healthy food is a blessing from the Lord that we have the privilege of enjoying.
Reference:
Seubert, Christine, et al. “Antecedent interventions for pediatric feeding problems.” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, vol. 57, no. 1, 2023, pp. 283–283, https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.1050.