Causes of Child's Eating Difficulty and the Solutions

A child is the light of life. However, there are some problems of children that can sometimes be very difficult for parents. One of the problems is when the child doesn’t want to eat. 

Various Causes

Before we step into overcoming difficulty eating on children, we must firstly know the cause of the problem, such as : 

The first cause is the structure of the child's tongue. In children, the tongue has 10,000 taste sensors and while growing up, that number is reduced to only 2000 taste sensors. Therefore, the child may feel more detailed taste on the food they eat, especially vegetables which taste bland, bitter, soft, and others. This often happens when our children can already eat more varied foods, between the ages of 4 to 10 years.

In addition, their brain development is also the one to blame. The children’s brain will catch a lot more of information that makes the children always eager to know. This extra attention makes them difficult to concentrate on the food, and the result is, the food is left untouched. 

Other causes are the parents of the children themselves. When the father and mother of the children never eat fruits and vegetables, they will imitate the action of two people he loves the most. The playing location also becomes the cause of this problem. They prefer eating the foods sold at school or around the neighborhood. 

How to Overcome 

There are many ways to deal with the children who don’t like or are difficult to eat, especially fruits and vegetables, such as :

The first is to change the eating habits of the parents. If parents have shown that fruits and vegetables are good to eat, eat them every day, and make it a habit and a diet of the family, then the children will be interested and follow the action. 

Mommy can make the food looks appealing with the food display design in the form of cute animals or favorite movie characters. And it would be better if our children are included in creating this funny-shaped food. By doing so, our children will be happy and it will be easier to give them a healthier diet.

Another trick is to use Puree. Puree is the cooked vegetables, mostly seamed, and then crushed with a blender or food processor. These vegetables can be stored in the refrigerator for several days and can be inserted to the children’s favorite food, for example in chicken nuggets, homemade pizza and many more. So, the children will get the nutrients from the food they like.

To form a child’s mentality that likes fruits and vegetables, we also need to present the fruits and vegetables on their plates. Slowly we try to persuade our children. And in the persuasion process, our children still get nutrients from Puree that we use.