Selective Eating Disorder?

[joaninpa]

My daughter is almost 13 and refuses to try new foods. She eats a very limited selection of foods, most of which are "kid foods" like fish sticks and french fries. This is effecting her health as she has GERD and these are not the foods she is supposed to eat. She knows this, but seems to be scared to try anything new. Any suggestions? Is this selective eating disorder?

[gymnastxxLeah]

haha i remember being 13 ...

the thing is, its RARE to find a 13 year old who wants to eat anything other than pizza and ice cream. shes a teenager! its totally normal for her to not want to try new foods. just try and make them as familiar as possible. If you want her to eat brocoli, cover it in cheese. basically, you have to get her used to new foods. find things that shes heard of, but never tried ... i'm not really sure what else to say. i was never a picky kid ... but i know people who lived off chocolate and mashe potatoes as kids ... hahaha be a parent, not a pal.

[survivor16]

I'm sure this is so frusterating for you!
But trust me, I used to be a PICKY eater at 13. I think it's normal to not want to try new foods.
I started getting tired of eating the same foods, and eventually ventured out. I hope she does the same!

If its really concerning you, I would talk to a doctor about it and get some suggestions on what to do to help her eat more. If she is loosing lots of weight and you are worried about her health, that's the first step I would take.
Again, if severe, you may want to see if you wants to talk about this to anyone. Is there a reason she's not trying new things? Maybe the foods she eats is relating to her life a little bit?
I'm sure it's frusterating for her not thinking any other foods wlll taste good!

I hope this helped, good luck!
Shelby

[Coffee.]

Welcome to TeenHelp!

I completely understand your worry, since this is not a healthy diet, and because of her condition, it makes it all the worse. As others have pointed out, this is fairly normal for somebody her age. 13 year olds are picky. However, she needs to be eating a more balanced diet.

Honestly, you're her mother, and you really can put any food in the house and she'll be stuck eating that. When I was that age, I had preferences of food, but I was too lazy to ever really go against my parents wishes and cook my own food, so I pretty much ate whatever they fed me. I would recommend just trying to make as healthy of dinners as possible, and to overall buy less processed foods for your whole family. Obviously, it's okay if she has unhealthy foods every once in a while, but not every day. I would also make sure she is eating a healthy breakfast, since that really starts out her metabolism and helps her digest the other foods better as well.

I would also recommend talking to her about how you're feeling. Use I language. Tell her "It worries me that you are not eating as healthy as you should. What can I do to be able to encourage you to eat better?" Don't make it a derogatory thing like it's all her fault. Maybe she'd like to try new things, maybe she just doesn't know what else to eat. But overall, try to have a conversation with her about it.

I'll leave you with the TeenHelp Guide to Healthy Eating , and I'll recommend a few specific foods myself that I enjoyed eating as a teenager that are healthy! Random, but I hope it helps you get an idea of healthy foods that teenagers like.

Breakfast foods:
1. Fiber One Healthy Clusters Cereal + 2%/Skim/Soy milk
2. Orange Juice Boxes (Seems like a kid thing, but on the way to the bus, SO convenient. Same thing can be made with a waterbottle and orange juice to save money/environment)
3. Fiber One or Fiber Plus Gronola Bars.
4. Whole wheat toast (Orowheat 12 grain is a good brand) and peanutbutter, jelly, or nutella, whatever her favorite is.
5. Fruit! My personal favorites are bananas, apples, and nectarines, but just find a fruit that works for her! These can but cut up and packed, or snacked on in the morning.

Lunch and Dinner things
1. Bagel and cream cheese, bagel and hummus, bagel and peanut butter.
2. Fun salads! You can try and see if she likes chef salads, ceasar salads, black bean salads, spinach fruit and nut salads, you know, a different variety of salads apart from the usual ice berg lettuce and ranch dressing.
3. Peanut butter and jelly with bananas or apples in it
4. Sandwich in a pita or a tortilla to mix things up from regular sandwiches
5. Healthier pastas, such as pasta and marinera sauce or a pasta with some olive oil and brocolli.

And a few good snacks to keep in the house
1. Chips and salsa
2. Peanuts/Almonds/Trail mixes
3. Wheat thins, Triscuits, basically some kind of whole wheat cracker, and cheese!
4. Dry cereal
5. Fruit and veggies, maybe cut up and with a bit of ranch.

Those are just some ideas that I enjoyed as a teenager. Maybe I was a healthier teenager, but hopefully, you got a few ideas as well.

[i_like_black]

Hi

I have an elder brother who is still very specific about what foods he will and will not eat. Part of it, for him, was how my father tried to force him to eat new foods as a young child, part of it is he's highly likely to be somewhere on the Autism Spectrum (think Asperger's end), and part of it is he just doesn't want to.

He suffers from IBS, so like your daughter, what he eats affects him. He also has a penchant for fried and grilled food. Although, we finally managed to get him to eat a cereal that isn't coco-pops for breakfast. I think at the moment he's eating cornflakes, although for a while he had Just Right or something with the raisins picked out. He had coco-pops for breakfast every morning for over ten years.
He usually has marmite sandwiches or something similar for lunch. The only vegetable he will eat is mashed potato. He does not eat fruit. His dinners consist of things like sausage rolls, chicken nuggets, and the pizza that you buy from the supermarket. He will also eat steak and/or sausages.

It took weeks of convincing to get him to have flavoured milk, and now he has a bit of a penchant for it.

With all that said, however, for the most part he's physically healthy. He's 6'2", is a healthy weight, his teenage acne has cleared up to merely rosacea, and thanks to aloe vera juice his IBS is mostly under control.

But like someone else said - you're the parent! When my brother was 13, he went hungry a lot of nights because he wouldn't eat what was served up, or would just have mashed potato. Mum (for a while) refused to cook two meals so he was left with the choice of eat it, or go hungry.

Another option is to get your daughter into the kitchen with you. If she becomes more familiar with the food you want her to try through preparing it and cooking it, she's more likely to eat it. She's also more likely to eat anything she's cooked herself because of the effort that went into the preparation.

And as for being 13 . . . when I was 13 I ate whatever the heck was put in front of me. I'm not generally a picky eater and I was quite active and had just finished growing - I grew fast - so I was hungry lots. 13 year olds don't differ much in what they want to eat however - it's generally high-fat, high-sugar junk. Most of them out grow it.

Good luck with your daughter

[Silvia]

I'd try to cook in a different and original way so that she finds fish, vegetables, meat, etc, more attractive. On the Internet there are some good ideas by famous cooks who "invent" dishes for kids...

[Janie]

I was exactly the same although now being the age I am now I have got so much better. I think it comes with age to try new foods.