Why is Feeding Children Challenging?
I figured out today that over the course of your child’s first 18 years, you will feed them almost 33,000 times. You read that right – THIRTY-THREE THOUSAND times. (For you math types out there, that’s assuming 3 meals per day plus 2 snacks per day, 365 days per year, for 18 years.)
Is anybody surprised that feeding our kids can be stressful? Or that it feels like you are ALWAYS feeding your kids? I think anything we do 33,000 times in in our life has the possibility to cause stress.
For fun, I decided to create a “Recipe” for making feeding difficult:
- Child (or multiple children)
- Lack of instruction
- Assumption of knowledge
- Conflicting Information
- Obsession with weight
- Constant bombardment
- Different attitudes
- Family experiences with food
- Independent Minds
- Have children.
- Desire to feed children well.
- Add a lack of quality instruction as to how to feed children well.
- Blend with the concept that everyone assumes we know what good feeding practices are (even though nobody tells us what research says.)
- Mix in the conflicting information we receive about which foods are actually healthy.
- Beat the above knowledge with our society's obsession with weight.
- Throw in a constant bombardment of the messages about needing a "balanced diet".
- Gently fold into this crazy mixture the experiences with food that we each grew up with.
- Cream together our attitude towards feeding children with that of our spouses, our extended families, and/or our childcare, which will all assuredly be different.
- Blend in the fact that children HAVE A MIND OF THEIR OWN, thank you very much.
- Let simmer indefinitely.
- Repeat approximately 33,000 times over 18 years.
When Feeding Challenges Become Severe
As if the recipe for a typical child above wasn’t challenging enough, sometimes there are even more ingredients added to this stew. When that happens, there are number of extra steps added to the recipe:
13. Toss in a medical complication or two, like GERD, chronic constipation, allergies etc.
14. Stir in some developmental delays, like those caused by autism, cerebral palsy, etc.
15. Combine with oral motor problems or swallowing problems, which make feeding painful or difficult.
16. Whisk in some sensory processing issues, making feeding uncomfortable or anxiety producing.
17. Top it all off with a healthy dollop of behavioral issues related to feeding.
18. Marinate all of these ingredients together to create a distressing combination of severe feeding challenges.
Quite sincerely, when steps 13-18 occur, feeding goes from challenging to absolutely distressing and difficult very quickly.
Feeding Challenges Defined
So, what exactly do I mean by “Feeding Challenges”? When I say those words, I mean literally ANYTHING that makes it difficult to feed your children!
Bahahaha – this was truth in my house tonight!
Feeding challenges definitely exist across a vast continuum – they run the gamut from mild picky eating to severe problem feeding. Although I will talk a lot about severe problem feeding, I hope much of the information here will be helpful even if you just have mildly picky eaters. It may even be helpful if your children are good eaters, but you still sometimes find meals stressful. I hope it is for everybody!
There are a number of terms that will get thrown around when it comes to feeding challenges. To make sure that it’s clear as to what I mean, I want to define a number of feeding related terms here.
- Picky Eating – I use this term to describe a picky eater that’s on the less extreme end of the spectrum of feeding challenges. Sometimes I’ll call this “normal picky eating” or “typical picky eating”. This type of eating may cause some stress at home, but it doesn’t overly impact your overall life.
- Problem Feeding, Extreme Picky Eating, and Severe Feeding Challenges – I will use these terms interchangeably to describe the most severe end of the picky eating spectrum. This level of picky eating greatly impacts a whole family’s life.
- Selective Eating Disorder – Similar to a problem feeding or extreme picky eating, this is not officially a diagnosis. However, some people use this term for someone who has a very limited diet.
- Feeding Disorder – An inability to use the mouth appropriately for sucking, chewing, and swallowing.
- Eating Disorder – Eating disorders involve abnormal eating patterns as well as significant issues related to body image. Some studies suggest that problem feeders are more likely to develop eating disorders down the road. However, these are complex disorders that require specialized medical treatment, and as such, eating disorders are well beyond the scope of this website.
- Dysphagia – An inability and/or difficulty with the act of swallowing.
- Aspiration – The inhalation of food particles or refluxed stomach contents into the airways.
- Failure to Thrive – I’ve often thought this should be termed “failure to grow”, because essentially, it is simply a medical term for a lack of adequate physical growth. This is typically determined at child’s well-child exam, when the doctors looks at growth charts for height and weight. Typically, a child whose growth falls beneath a certain percentile or whose growth doesn’t continue at an expected rate will be evaluated to determine if there is a concern.
- Food aversions – Being “averse” to something means having a strong dislike or opposition to something. So food aversions involve having a strong dislike or opposition to food. If you’ve ever been pregnant and had a food you just could NOT tolerate, that was a type of food aversion. Food aversions are very common in children with severe feeding challenges.
- Food Neophobia – Neophobia means the fear of new things, especially a persistent or abnormal fear. So, food neophobia is a persistent and abnormal fear of new foods. This is also common in children with severe feeding challenges.
- ARFID – This stands for “Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder”. This is an actual diagnosis that is listed in the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). As the name suggests, it essentially means that a child doesn’t take in enough food for optimum growth. It is possible that some problem feeders would fall into this group.
Why I Write About Feeding Challenges
So, why do I write about Feeding Challenges? There’s a few reasons…
1) It’s a Challenge All Parents Face
Feeding challenges are faced by all parents, to one degree or another! In fact, one of the most common things that other parents talk with me about is their kids’ eating habits and their concerns about their kids’ feeding.
Perhaps it is because they know our story. Or maybe it is because they don’t fear judgement from a mom whose child pretty much lives on grilled cheese and applesauce. Or it could be because they know I’ve researched children’s feeding to death (because, you know, a worried mother does better research than the FBI).
Whatever the reason, I regularly hear from other parents how much they worry about what their children eat…and about how much stress meals cause in their home. Beneath most of my discussions with parents is an underlying worry: are our children getting enough of the right foods to eat to be healthy?
Truth be told, I certainly don’t have all the answers…but I have learned an immense amount of valuable information that has been helpful to me. And I feel like this information should be available to all parents – without going through years of feeding therapy!
2) We’ve Been There
Having experienced severe feeding challenges with our daughter, E, I know firsthand how difficult this can be, and how hard it is to find help! I am cognizant of how lonely it can be for a parent, but also how stressful it is for the child. I’m well-acquainted with the questions that get asked by well-meaning individuals and the (often unhelpful) suggestions that others give.
If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re in good company!
I have felt the aggravation of dealing with doctors that simply do not comprehend the severity. I remember well the tears shed in frustration and concern because my child JUST WOULDN’T EAT! I felt the despair of being told that your child is severely underweight, or that she has “protein malnutrition”. I remember knowing that this was true, but I also knowing that I was doing everything I could…yet nothing was working!
As of this writing, we’ve lived this world for 10 years, and we know how all-consuming a feeding issue is…because you can’t just “take time away” from feeding your child. As mentioned above, it happens thousands of times, and it has to happen EVERY SINGLE DAY!
So, I write about feeding challenges so that if you’re out there living this too, you will know that you are NOT alone. There are others living it too!
3) Food Should Be Enjoyed!
Seriously. Meals should be an enjoyable family experience. Food should not stress us out if we have plenty of it. (Those who do not have enough food are in another situation altogether, and although that breaks my heart, it is another post for another time…)
Yet what I hear too often is how parents are stressed about their kids’ eating, or how they battle with their kids to get them to eat, or how mom and dad don’t agree with how much to push their kids to eat, or how extended family has “advice” for them that they don’t find helpful…all of which creates less than enjoyable meals! And for kids with feeding disorders, meals can literally be painful.
I do not claim to have this all figured out, or to be perfect at feeding my children. After all, as mentioned before, I have a child that mostly lives on grilled cheese, Eggo waffles, and applesauce. However, I have learned a lot of interesting things along this journey.
My hope is that, through posting what I’ve learned, perhaps someone somewhere can enjoy their meals with their children a little more – even with their extreme picky eaters – and perhaps remove the stress enough to just be able to be grateful for the blessing of enough food!