Like the last post said, there are a few reasons that a child may not be eating a variety of foods. It is important to remember that it is typical for children to become more picky as they are learning to become more independent, but they will be able to still taste and try new foods with some coaxing. This post will talk about how the sensory properties of foods can impact what a child is willing to touch, taste, or eat.
First, we need to remind ourselves what our senses are. We have the sense of sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. Feeding is the only task we do that requires all of our senses. Think about that a second. We use all of those senses when we take each bite of food we eat. When we are eating, we see the food on the plate and coming towards our mouth (either on our fingers or on a utensil). Foods come in many different shapes, colors, and textures that we can see. As it gets closer to our face, we can smell the food. Some foods have big smells and some have almost no smell at all. Then, we feel the food as it either touches our fingers/lips/tongue. These properties can be hard, wet, soft, hot, cold, spongy, slimy, etc. Then, we taste the food once it is in our mouth. Some foods are salty, sweet, bitter, sour, spicy, or a combination of these. Finally, while we are eating, we can hear the food crunch with our teeth or hear it swish around before we swallow. While we swallow, we can also hear that task. That is a lot of information our brains need to decipher and accept for a task that we do multiple times a day to get the calories we need to function and live.
For some kids, the properties of the foods can be too much for their bodies. The texture of the food can be overwhelming, the look of the food can be off putting, the sound of the food in the mouth can be something that is difficult for them to overcome, or the smell can be too big. Oftentimes, a child will limit his/her diet to what they expect and are comfortable with.
As therapists, it’s important for us to find similarities of foods and find out what each child is comfortable with. We then use this information in therapy to help them expand their diet.
Stay tuned for the next post that will discuss another reason why a child may not be eating a variety of foods – where their skills are to effectively chew and swallow foods!
-Amber–