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What is a Food Jag When it comes to Picky Eaters?
It's great when you find a food your kid loves, BUT... Serving it the same way every meal every day can lead to food jag.
A food jag is when your child will only eat the same food (can be brand specific) served the exact same way every single meal. Often times this leads to "burn out" and the child will suddenly eliminate this food from his or her already limited diet.
Have you ever celebrated when you finally found a relatively nutritious food that your child likes only to realize that one random day he completely refuses it??
When my son was younger he requested PB&J for breakfast lunch and dinner until one day he said "I hate that!" I was satisfied with his acceptance of pbj which seemed to be nutritious enough, but I didn't realize that serving it exactly the same 3 times every day was actually creating more "picky eating" issues. I was making it harder for him to accept change and learn be adventurous.
How does it happen?
Kids may eliminate foods and get stuck on food jags due to negative experiences with certain foods related to sensory processing, oral motor skills, repeated gagging, choking, abdominal pain, food allergies, anxiety, and mealtime stress/pressure.
It is definitely exciting and something to celebrate when your child decides they like a new food, but it's important to make sure we change things up a little. Whether that means changing the shape, cutting it differently, using a slightly different ingredient, switching the brand adding a topping etc... I know it's easy to get caught up in the meal by meal attitude, but let's try to focus on our long term goal- we want to foster healthy positive adventurous attitudes towards food!
Tell me a food your child ate all the time and then decided he hated! ⬇️
