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Louise Thomas

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I’m en route to a tiny cottage in Wales when my phone pings. “Supper is ready and waiting for you – hope the journey was good!” It’s a text from one of my friends, who has kindly allowed me and my daughters, eight-year-old Lola and six-year-old Liberty, to stay with them in their family’s remote retreat. We’re all starving, so I’m grateful. But I’m also anxious. As I pull up to the house and then wheel our suitcases into the kitchen, my heart sinks: dinner is vegetarian ratatouille and jacket potatoes, and my children will never eat it. Nor will they consider trying the lovely avocado salad, or the cream cheese and chive dip with cucumber on a tray. The only thing they’ll consider is the ice cream for pudding.

I am the parent to two fussy eaters, and although Liberty eats tons of vegetables and more varieties of food than Lola does, supper and lunch are generally on a boring loop of pasta, egg fried rice and fish fingers. And only one supermarket brand at that. “No green stuff on anything” is their motto. Basil on a margherita pizza is a crime. Oranges will only be eaten if freshly squeezed into juice. Strawberries and mango are “yuck!” Lola will eat edamame beans, but absolutely no other vegetables.

This is where the mum-shame kicks in. Is it all my fault? Why didn’t I “train their palettes” by exposing them to hundreds of foods before their first birthdays like other mums do? Little do our friends know the mega suitcase I’ve left in the hall is full of food for my children – otherwise they’ll only be eating pasta and chips for a week.

I have no idea how to help Lola get over picky eating without nagging her. If I hand her a bowl of blueberries, she’ll burst into tears. Will she grow out of it? Or has the normal picky eating phase – that Liberty is currently in – snowballed into something bigger for my older child? One thing is for sure: it’s time to stop beating myself up over it. According to research, having a picky eater is extremely common. One recent study found almost three-quarters of parents say their children are fussy when it comes to food. More than one in 10 households (11 per cent) serve up three different suppers every night due to picky eaters and allergies. One in six parents, meanwhile, has given up trying to get their children to eat different foods at all. And although children usually grow out of fussy eating by the age of five, some don’t – like my daughter Lola.

According to Sarah Almond Bushell, a therapist who founded The Children’s Nutritionist to help fix fussy eating through online courses, it’s never the parents’ fault. “Typical fussy eating lasts till around age four to five, as this is when children shift into their next developmental phase,” she says. Food neophobia, or the fear of trying new food, is considered a normal stage of child development and affects between 50 and 75 per cent of children. There is often no single cause, she adds – even a child having a sensitive or impulsive temperament can make them more prone to fussy eating. But sometimes parents driven by sheer desperation adopt counterproductive strategies to get their children to eat. These include rewarding or bribing, restricting, distracting or indulging their children during mealtimes. “All of [these] make fussy eating worse and last longer,” Bushell warns.

Dr Gillian Harris is a clinical psychologist at the University of Birmingham who treats avoidant and restrictive food intake disorder (Arfid). She says that “depending on which research paper you read, fussy eating is reported by 30 to 60 per cent of parents”. A trustee of Arfid Awareness UK, a useful resource for parents, she adds that “the root cause is sensory hyperreactivity interacting with the fear and anxiety centres in the brain – so always remember to keep anxiety levels low. Let them have that iPad!”

She continues: “The most common reason for refusing a food will be the texture. We have evolved to avoid slimy, mixed, wet textures – so that is most fruit and veg out.” Reassuringly, she tells me that some children – like Lola – “will not try anything new until the prefrontal lobes will allow them to cope with the fear and move on themselves – [that can be] after the age of eight years old”. This is more likely to happen with a “low-demand parent/high-control child” approach. “Back off,” she tells me, “and stop hassling about it!” If a child, however, doesn’t move out of the fussy eater phase at the usual age, “there is usually some degree of sensory difficulties – avoidant eating and sensory-related refusal is on a continuum”.

Children with the most severe cases of fussy eating would get a diagnosis of Arfid. In some of these cases, children eat nothing but crisps, biscuits and yoghurts (all of these brand specific), and can’t eat with family or with other children at school. There is often a gag and retching response to the sight of others’ foods. There is also a later onset phase from late childhood to early teens, Dr Harris says, that presents as “a fear of vomiting, swallowing, or choking… both are far more prevalent in those with autism spectrum disorder (30 per cent). And [it’s] highly heritable – so not the mum’s fault at all.”

Kerrie Jones, a psychotherapist and founder of Orri, a specialist eating disorder service in London, says that they have had a “highly significant” increase in Arfid of late. But they attribute it to the fact that Arfid is relatively new to be recognised as an eating disorder. “Sometimes Arfid is explained as ‘extreme picky eating’, but this is an unhelpful description as it is very different to normal picky eating,” she says. “The key difference is the level of physical and mental distress that eating causes.”

Fussy eating or Arfid, she says, isn’t helped by the new pressure for parents to follow nutrition trends for kids, such as “clean” eating, plant-based or unprocessed diets, or diets that restrict a certain ingredient like gluten or whole food groups like carbohydrates. “It can lead to anxiety around food and often contributes to restrictive eating behaviours and the endorsing of moral judgements on food, such as particular foods being ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”

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While early intervention can prevent the progression of an eating disorder – and address underlying anxieties – it’s not always the way forward. Dr Katja Rowell is known as The Feeding Doctor and has worked in child feeding for 15 years in the US – she is also the author of books including Helping Your Child with Extreme Picky Eating – and says parents shouldn’t march their children aged five-plus to therapy at the drop of a hat. “We are therapising far too many children who don’t need it – [certainly] in the US where it is very common for children to be in feeding therapy.” The key to dealing with a picky eater is acceptance, she says. “If a child, teen, or even adult is not distressed by their eating, then is there a problem?” she asks. “If a parent can accept that their child is eating enough to grow and meet their nutritional needs, does it matter if they don’t eat any veg?”

With so much conflicting advice out there – and pressure on social media “that children should be drinking green smoothies and choosing organic seaweed flakes over crisps,” Dr Rowell says – the mum guilt and shame is intensified. “The pressure to make eating ‘fun’, as if this will cure fussy eating, is bonkers,” she tells me. “‘See who can crunch loudest!’ ‘See who can finish first!’ ‘Use your lion teeth!’ ‘Let’s paint with that blueberry!’ As one mum said to me, ‘I hated sitting with [the child] because it was pressure no matter how fun I thought I was making it.’”

All the worry, focus, and effort to try to get children to eat more or less or different foods tends to make matters worse. “They hear, ‘You’re not okay,’ and ‘you can’t figure this out’. There’s so much unnecessary suffering, conflict, and worry.” It can take a long time to shift out of fussy eating, she concludes, “until something happens – going to uni, travelling abroad, having a supportive friend or partner to eat with. It opens the door to new experiences.”

Her motto is “harmony, love, and connection are more important than vegetables”, because they are more likely to help with the long-term goal of raising a child who enjoys eating them. That’s why I’m going to let Lola try new foods at her own pace – and keep buying her those frozen edamame until she asks for petit pois.

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