Picky-Eating Kids Could have Bigger Mental Health Issues
Little boy eating Cajun Salmon (Picture: Rex)
No little child likes broccoli but psychologists now believe that being picky over food can be a sign of of greater mental health issues.
Researchers at Duke University conducted a survey of 917 students where they found that 20% of children between the ages of two and six.
The study published in the journal Pediatrics found that children with moderate selective eating were more likely to have ADHD and separation anxiety.
Children with severe selective eating were more than twice as likely to also have a diagnosis of depression.
Lead study author Nancy Zucker and director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders told CBS News: ‘Parents are very good at identifying picky eating in their kids, but it’s much harder for all of us to identify things like depression and anxiety because the internal workings of our children are hard to know.
‘So picky eating could be a marker, especially in severe cases, for children who would benefit from an intervention that would not only help them with food but help them manage emotions more generally.
‘These are what I describe as sensitive children, They’re experiencing both the external world and their internal world more strongly, and that could be setting them up for these common vulnerabilities in both eating and mental health symptoms.’
