EATING DISORDERS

A common cause of parental concern is under-eating. Sometimes children refuse to drink milk and don’t eat food at regular hours. Multiple food dislikes are also common. Eating problems are not unusual, 25-35 percent of children have them. Some other common problems reported by mothers are: bizarre food habits, prolonged dependence on finely mashed food, difficulty or delay in swallowing, delay in self-feeding and eating inedible stuffs like mud, dirt and plaster from the walls. These problems could be caused by mismanagement in the home, an obstruction in the throat or other medical abnormalities. For normal children, mismanagement alone is often the main cause of many problems. Inadequate intake of basic nutrients could be the cause of eating mud or plaster and licking of walls. Difficulty in chewing and sucking or delay in swallowing could be due to constitutional reasons. And there could be problems due to feeding patterns governed by the specific family practices such as not giving solid food which is tough to chew or always feeding freshly cooked food with less spices. Regular feeding habits must be introduced in very early childhood. There are several reasons why children refuse food. If they are weaned from liquid to solid food after the age of twelve to eighteen months, they tend to resist solid food. Often mothers feel tired of feeding and find it easier to give milk. This works in two ways: the child gets into the habit of satisfying his hunger by easy infantile sucking, and the mother if relieved to the effort required to feed her child. Similarly, self-feeding is avoided by some parents so as to finish feeding faster and to avoid the cleaning up of the mess later. Poor intake, that is eating less than what the parent wishes, could be due to wrong expectations. Often it is due to emotional factors like the child being scolded repeatedly or threatened, making eating more a chore than a pleasure. If the food is too spice, children refuse to eat.