What are the consequences for health if children like to choose

Children who are picky eaters make parents irritated and worried. There are children who only want to eat sausage and chicken nuggets using instant noodles, or only want to eat special package menus at restaurants fast food so you can get the toy prize. The picky eating phase is actually normal during a child's development, but that doesn't mean parents continue to let it drag on. Eating habits like this over time are not good for your little one's health.

Why do children like to be picky about food?

Children are picky eaters in general because they are not used to eating habits like adults. Especially for toddlers who have just switched to a solid food menu, the various shapes, textures, colors, smells, and new tastes of various foods can surprise him.

In addition, the tendency to be picky about food may also arise from the child's habit of seeing the diet of both parents themselves. For example the mother who doesn't like to eat vegetables or the father who just wants to eat the same thing. Children grow up following what parents usually show as their main role models. So when you offer him to eat vegetables, he will refuse because he thinks "My parents don't even eat that, why should I?"

They will show their "protest" with a low appetite, often refuse to eat, only want to eat what they know and like, and only want to eat small amounts of food.

Like picky eating makes children's nutritional adequacy unbalanced

When children are accustomed to eating the same food over and over, their body will automatically perceive the diet as routine. This is certainly detrimental to the process of growth and development. When the menu or food ingredients that children eat every day from morning to night are all the same, this will gradually limit the baby's nutritional intake. In fact, the child's body needs a proportional variety of nutritional intake every day to live a healthy life.

If children have poor nutrition, they have the potential to experience complications and long-term health problems. For example, if a child always eats packaged foods that are high in calories and salt, he will tend to grow fat and be at risk of obesity at an early age. If you are obese, you will usually tend to spread to diabetes due to increased blood sugar due to excess carbohydrates.

It is the same if the child only wants to eat a little. Based on research, bad habits of picky eating can cause children to have a lower weight and height than other children of the same age. Child picky eater often lack of fiber intake which makes them prone to chronic constipation.

In addition, they also tend to lack energy and lack of micronutrients, especially iron and vitamin A. Children with poor nutrition are very susceptible to infection disease. So, it is not impossible that your little one's growth and development will be stunted and even stop prematurely if he is accustomed to being picky eaters.

Child picky eater have slow mental development

The habit of being picky eaters can not only have a negative impact on a child's physical health, but also his mental development. Based on a number of existing studies, children picky eater turned out to have mental development 14 points lower than children who eat easily.

This is supported by data from the World Bank which suggests that malnutrition in children is associated with lower IQ scores. Various health problems faced by children due to malnutrition make them unable to concentrate on learning in class

How to prevent children from becoming picky eater

Although picky eating included in the normal phase of child development, parents can prevent their children from getting used to being picky eaters by:

• When you are going to prepare food, you can try to invite your little one to help you. However, keep in mind not to let your little one use cooking utensils that can harm him, for example, such as knives.
• Invite your little one to try a variety of new food menus. This will increase your little one's curiosity to recognize a variety of foods.
• When eating together, create a pleasant atmosphere. For example, talk about positive things, spend quality time eating together and don't force your little one to eat.
• Try to serve food in a unique and interesting form, so that your little one feels interested in trying it.
• Space each meal at least 3 hours apart and serve 5-6 meals per day (including heavy meals and snacks).
• Try to eat foods that your little one doesn't like in front of your little one. For example, your little one doesn't like spinach. You can try eating spinach in front of your little one and encourage it slowly so that your little one will also be interested and want to try it.

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