WASHINGTON : Parents, take note! Kids who are fussy eaters may be suffering from depression and anxiety – serious childhood issues that need intervention, a new study suggests.
Although many families see picky eating as a phase, a new study from Duke University Medical Center has found that moderate and severe picky eating often coincides with serious childhood issues such as depression and anxiety.
According to the study, more than 20 per cent of children ages 2 to 6 are selective eaters. Of them, nearly 18 per cent were classified as moderately picky.
The remaining children, about 3 per cent, were classified as severely selective – so restrictive in their food intake that it limited their ability to eat with others.
“The question for many parents and physicians is: when is picky eating truly a problem?” said lead author Nancy Zucker, director of the Duke University’s Centre for Eating Disorders.
“The children we’re talking about are not just misbehaving kids who refuse to eat their broccoli,” she said.
Children with both moderate and severe selective eating habits showed symptoms of anxiety and other mental conditions.
The study found that children with selective eating behaviours were nearly twice as likely to have increased symptoms of generalised anxiety at follow-up intervals during the study, which screened an initial 3,433 children.
Researchers found that both moderate and severe selective eating were associated with significantly elevated symptoms of depression, social anxiety and generalised anxiety.
Although children with moderate picky eating did not show an increased likelihood of formal psychiatric diagnoses, children with severe selective eating were more than twice as likely to also have a diagnosis of depression.
Children with moderate and severe patterns of selective eating would meet the criteria for an eating disorder called Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), a new diagnosis included in the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, researchers said.
The findings also suggest that parents are in conflict with their children regularly over food – which does not necessarily result in the child eating – and families and doctors need new tools to address the problem, Zucker said.
“There’s no question that not all children go on to have chronic selective eating in adulthood,” Zucker said.
“But because these children are seeing impairment in their health and well-being now, we need to start developing ways to help these parents and doctors know when and how to intervene,” she said.
Zucker said some children who refuse to eat might have heightened senses, which can make the smell, texture and tastes of certain foods overwhelming, causing aversion and disgust.
The study was published in the journal Pediatrics. (AGENCIES)
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