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Why is my child a picky eater and what should I do?

What are the reasons why child­ren beco­me picky eaters? Almost every child today is affec­ted by picky eating in some form. Find out the reasons and what you can do to chan­ge this situation. 
Picky Eater sitting in front of bowl of blueberries and orange juice
Click on the image to watch the video.

What was almost unhe­ard of 70 years ago is now com­ple­te­ly nor­mal: child­ren who “eat poor­ly”. I would call it a pan­de­mic of picky eaters. The term comes from Eng­lish and means “fus­sy eater”.

Almost every child today is affec­ted by this in some way through their eating habits. Some child­ren have a mil­der form of picky eating, while others have a more seve­re form. Some pedia­tri­ci­ans say that you should­n’t worry if child­ren are picky eaters and their only food is sweets and dry pas­ta. At least they eat a meal and still grow up somehow. Not every nut­ri­tio­nist knows that child­ren with this mal­nu­tri­ti­on crea­te a bree­ding ground for all kinds of phy­si­cal and men­tal ill­nesses in adult­hood and that what child­ren eat and how balan­ced it is plays a major role in their later life. 

This is the typi­cal eating situa­ti­on for child­ren today:

  • the child does­n’t like something
  • it does not want to try any­thing / is afraid of new foods
  • the child has an aver­si­on to cer­tain foods or to raw foods
  • the con­sis­ten­cy (e.g. mus­hy, mus­hy, fib­rous …) is not accepted
  • the child wants to eat the same thing every day for the main meals
  • it freaks out if the food does not have exact­ly the desi­red “shape”
  • the child is very picky and only wants to eat cer­tain parts of a food or have ever­y­thing sepa­ra­te­ly on the plate
  • it can only eat food of a cer­tain color
  • the child rejects cer­tain food colors, e.g. the green color of broc­co­li, ever­y­thing green is yucky

I know exact­ly how it feels when you stand in the kit­chen for hours, coo­king the exact food that the child should actual­ly like, lovin­g­ly pla­cing the food on the din­ner table… and then it is refu­sed! I know this frus­tra­ti­on, I have expe­ri­en­ced it 100 times mys­elf with my picky eater! And yes, everyone’s tas­te is dif­fe­rent, ever­yo­ne loves a dif­fe­rent fla­vor. One per­son likes this more than that! Sure, almost every child does that! But refu­sing some­thing com­ple­te­ly and not being able to eat at all is actual­ly not nor­mal, alt­hough it is com­mon prac­ti­ce today, even among adults. Picky eating can be very diver­se and can ran­ge from mild to com­ple­te refu­sal to eat!

Poisons in the brain influence the sense of taste!

Toxic sub­s­tances such as hea­vy metals in the brain dis­rupt the signals that are sent via the ner­ves from the brain to the nose and ton­gue, ther­eby alte­ring the per­cep­ti­on of tas­te. When this hap­pens, a deli­cious sweet bana­na can seem sour or other­wi­se dis­tur­bing, such as unbe­ara­b­ly sweet. In addi­ti­on, the elec­tri­cal impul­ses can no lon­ger flow free­ly due to hea­vy metal blocka­ges in the brain and col­l­i­de seve­ral times until they final­ly find ano­ther way. This then mani­fests its­elf in com­pul­si­ve eating beha­vi­or (the food can only look like this or that).

It seems that all you can do is wait and somehow deal with the situa­ti­on until the child­ren beco­me more “sen­si­ble”. As child­ren get older, they often eat bet­ter becau­se their brains grow and the­re is more space and the hea­vy metal depo­sits no lon­ger take up as much space as they do in a small brain. The elec­tri­ci­ty that flows through the brain is then sim­ply redi­rec­ted around the metals into the new­ly grown brain tis­sue and can flow the­re unhin­de­red, so that it no lon­ger cau­ses such signi­fi­cant pro­blems. In many cases, pati­ent wai­ting is actual­ly enough and the picky eating dis­ap­pears on its own (this also appli­es to more serious eating dis­or­ders in child­ren). What this does not sol­ve, howe­ver, are the hea­vy metal depo­sits in the brain, which can still cau­se fur­ther health pro­blems in adult­hood. If you do not want this for your child (even in adult­hood), you should make sure that the hea­vy metals are remo­ved from the body. And you do not have to wait until the child­ren grow up and beco­me sen­si­ble! Even todd­lers can beco­me gre­at eaters through hea­vy metal detoxification.

Child­ren with the picky eating pro­blem often also have other sym­ptoms such as speech dis­or­ders, dis­or­ders of gross and fine motor skills, obses­si­ve-com­pul­si­ve dis­or­ders, anxie­ty dis­or­ders, sleep dis­or­ders, dys­le­xia, con­cen­tra­ti­on pro­blems, fre­quent tired­ness and exhaus­ti­on, hyper­sen­si­ti­vi­ty (sen­si­ti­vi­ty to noi­se, sen­si­ti­vi­ty to clot­hing, etc.), sei­zu­res, depres­si­on, mood swings, ADHD / ADD, autism, Tour­et­te syn­dro­me or tics, all of which are also rela­ted to the hea­vy metals in the brain.

Dietary change and heavy metal detoxification with picky eaters

Many mothers would like to help their child­ren streng­then their immu­ne sys­tems through a healt­hi­er diet so that they don’t con­stant­ly catch infec­tions, or to alle­via­te typi­cal sym­ptoms and ill­nesses such as skin dise­a­ses, diges­ti­ve pro­blems, respi­ra­to­ry dise­a­ses, etc. Howe­ver, child­ren are gene­ral­ly not easi­ly accus­to­med to a chan­ge. It is a slow pro­cess over a long peri­od of time that requi­res a lot of time and peace. First, healt­hy alter­na­ti­ves to the food they are curr­ent­ly eating must be found that the child real­ly likes and that satis­fy them. This can invol­ve a lot of expe­ri­men­ta­ti­on and try­ing out until you find things that work. 

Tips for parents of picky eaters

As a first step, I would recom­mend dra­sti­cal­ly redu­cing fat con­sump­ti­on and incre­asing the amount of fruit.

Fruit or a smoothie (squee­za­ble fruit / juice / fruit ice cream / bana­na milk / dried fruit) can be offe­red every hour. Child­ren often like sweet fruit. The­se healt­hy snacks ensu­re that the body gets exact­ly what it needs and that blood sugar levels remain balan­ced. This mini­mi­zes cra­vings and cra­vings and makes the chan­ge in diet easier over­all. (For exam­p­le, if the child is allo­wed to make healt­hy food choices when shop­ping, it will be easier to hap­pi­ly grab them later.)

I would also try to Hea­vy metal detox smoothie and or Brainshots to incor­po­ra­te into the diet.

Deto­xi­fi­ca­ti­on of the brain is the first and most important thing if a child is to have nor­mal and healt­hy eating habits. The­r­e­fo­re, the most important thing is dai­ly deto­xi­fi­ca­ti­on through the Hea­vy Metal Detox Smoothie. Whe­ther a picky eater would want to drink this smoothie is of cour­se a com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent ques­ti­on. I have alre­a­dy advi­sed many mothers on this, becau­se the­re are many dif­fe­rent ways that can ulti­m­ate­ly enable child­ren to enjoy the 5 most important deto­xi­fy­ing ingre­di­ents, even tho­se with eating dis­or­ders. And as soon as the tas­te buds can recei­ve new mes­sa­ges from the brain, i.e. as soon as the con­ta­mi­na­ti­on of the cra­ni­al ner­ves and neu­rons by the hea­vy metal deto­xi­fi­ca­ti­on smoothie decrea­ses, things will slow­ly get bet­ter and more and more foods will tas­te good over time. Then ever­y­thing will beco­me easier and simp­ler. As a help, espe­ci­al­ly for the begin­ning, I always recom­mend the Chan­ges in food fears.

.This is a juice and a very small amount of it dai­ly is enough to pro­du­ce posi­ti­ve results quick­ly as it can break the fixed pat­terns in the brain so that chan­ges and impro­ve­ments are visi­ble much fas­ter (in a few days or weeks) than with just the hea­vy metal detox smoothie alo­ne (which can take seve­ral months). You can use the juice like medi­ci­ne. Many child­ren are used to having to take medi­ca­ti­on for their other ill­nesses and sym­ptoms. Sin­ce it is only a very small amount, it should be pos­si­ble even for the most seve­re eating dis­or­ders. A spoon­ful is enough to start with. But it should be con­ti­nuous every day! 

Even if it is not easy at the begin­ning, you have to be pati­ent and not give up. It takes a litt­le time for the tas­te buds to get used to the new food. Even small steps can make a dif­fe­rence. And even slow­ly you will even­tual­ly reach your goal. Par­ents should of cour­se set a good exam­p­le and be a role model for their child when it comes to eating. And then the­re is not­hing spe­cial about this way of eating; it will even­tual­ly beco­me the most nor­mal thing in the world. 

In the case of mild eating dis­or­ders, for exam­p­le whe­re cer­tain foods are avo­ided, it is actual­ly suf­fi­ci­ent to trick, hide, embel­lish and pro­cess some­thing if the color, shape or con­sis­ten­cy of a food is not right, so that the child enjoys eating at main meals. 

Here are a few tips for picky eaters that many par­ents have suc­cessful­ly used: 

  • Let your child eat more vege­ta­bles by hiding the food, e.g. pure­ed vege­ta­bles such as peas, car­rots and toma­toes in sau­ces, soups, ket­chup or cut­ting them up into tiny pie­ces bet­ween pas­ta or rice
  • Make the food tasty for the child by pro­ces­sing pota­toes into chips, wed­ges, pota­to pan­ca­kes, gnoc­chi, dum­plings, pota­to dum­plings, cro­quet­tes, fil­led pota­to pockets, pota­to piz­za, pota­to waf­f­les or mas­hed potatoes
  • Shape and deco­ra­te vege­ta­bles and fruit, e.g. with ani­mal-shaped coo­kie cut­ters, use eye food picks, etc., all tail­o­red to the age
  • Make smoothie ice cream in a fun sili­co­ne mold, then it will be eaten more rea­di­ly, the eye eats with you – the food beco­mes much more inte­res­t­ing for the child if it is deco­ra­ted in a visual­ly appe­al­ing way
  • Fee­ding can also work won­ders for child­ren with sen­so­ry food refu­sal, e.g. becau­se the child has pro­blems with fine motor skills due to the hea­vy metal con­ta­mi­na­ti­on or becau­se he or she has an aver­si­on to get­ting dir­ty (mouth, clo­thes or hands should not get dir­ty or wet). Here, the hea­vy metals must first be dis­sol­ved befo­re the child can deve­lop good inde­pen­dence and good table manners.

May­be the­se tips will help your child to beco­me a gre­at eater. Plea­se don’t force your child­ren to eat, that will only cau­se more stress at the din­ner table and at fami­ly meals. And if you say: “None of this works for my child!” → just try it out! With a litt­le pati­ence, things might look bet­ter in a year. Becau­se that’s how it was with us. Through hea­vy metal deto­xi­fi­ca­ti­on, David went from being an abso­lu­te refu­ser who did­n’t even want to try any­thing and who did­n’t like any­thing, to a litt­le gour­met who now has the grea­test joy and fun in healt­hy eating! Eating is his hob­by! One of his favo­ri­te foods is coles­law, alt­hough he has thou­sands of favo­ri­tes and loves varie­ty. Some­thing dif­fe­rent “spe­cial” every day and defi­ni­te­ly no bor­ing food (he’s had mono­to­no­us food for long enough). Who enjoys eating tog­e­ther. All the other par­ents are always more than ama­zed when they see him eating, becau­se they’­re not used to that from their own child­ren. The gre­at thing is that David is not an iso­la­ted case or a coin­ci­dence, but other child­ren have expe­ri­en­ced the same thing through hea­vy metal detoxification.

If you would like more infor­ma­ti­on on this topic, plea­se send me a mes­sa­ge to Healthy.Livex3 or fol­low me on Insta­gram.

More about the brain’s con­nec­tion to eating dis­or­ders in the book Heal your brain.  

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