ENDOCRINE EXPLAINED

Dr. Lerner's Method for Helping Sensitive Eaters to Tolerate (and Enjoy!) New Foods

 

If you know and love a child (or adult) who is sensitive to new foods - tastes, smells, or textures - keep on reading.

 

As a doctor, asking questions and learning about what motivates people, I have learned again and again how different people can be.  It turns out that some people love novelty - usually from birth. These people love new toys, interacting with new people, and laugh when surprised. Others - the ones I term "sensitive souls" - react in the opposite way.

 

A child sensitive to new foods may refuse to eat them. This can narrow their repertoire of foods to an extent that it becomes a challenge for them to be properly nourished - and frustrate their caregivers so much that it endangers their relationship with their beloved child. When stressed, they meltdown, and parents and caregivers can themselves become so averse to conflict, that they give up encouraging them to try new foods - the foods that have led to spitting up, a meltdown, or a screaming match in the dining room - but that their child needs for their health.

 

So, what do we need to know in order to help our child?

 

A sensitive child may be incredibly curious, but needs time to acclimate to new information, situations, and feelings. So, unless the food is sweet, salty, crunchy, or soft - depending on their preference - they may reflexively reject it. ("Doctor, my child will only eat candy, cookies and chips!" is something I hear often.) So, they need multiple tries before they become used to the food enough to tolerate it regularly.

 

A sensitive child often has powerful memories. So they remember that they tried the food and didn't like it. And so, they reason, why try it again if they didn't like it? They need to learn that tastes actually change over time. Young children taste bitter flavors when adults don't, so as they grow up, they'll be able to tolerate what they once didn't.

 

A sensitive child likely feels (and can describe) their pain - emotional and physical - more acutely than others. And they remember the circumstances of their discomfort well. They gag easily. They may even vomit. Their pain receptors are upregulated, their adrenaline levels higher, and their neurotransmitter levels in need of calm and support.

 

The vast majority of sensitive souls CAN acclimate to new foods, if encouraged gently, and with a few basic tricks - grounded, of course, in science.

 

My method has worked very well for many of my patients. But sensitivity/anxiety can be so severe that it limits a child's eating to the extent that it affects their growth (and why they see me)! At the point that it disrupts health, a narrowed food repertoire is more properly termed ARFID - Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. The mainstay of treatment is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, CBT. If your child has significant restriction to the extent that it is difficult to nourish them, please seek individualized professional help.