10 y.o. picky eater and refuses to even try new foods?

Question

We just moved to Shanghai, China. My daughter has always been a picky eater. Hardly eats meats, poultry, veggies, some fruits. Loves cheese, pasta, starchy foods, of course, sweets. I worry about her nutritional intake. She gets a multivitamin. Since moving here, I've had to change the way I cook. I am trying stir fries that are actually really tasty and everyone else is enjoying them. She refuses to try the food I have prepared. She won't even eat white rice. She tells me she isn't hungry. She tells me she can't even think about putting the food into her mouth. She eats cereal in the morning and a sandwich, yogurt, milk for lunch. Even today, I gave her grapes with small seeds and she didn't eat them. Says they were too hard to eat with the seeds even though she actually could just eat the small seeds and not know it. Different textures seem to bother her in her mouth, such as chicken. Some foods make her gag or she'll chew and then spit it out if I even get her to try something. I am not sure what can be done about this. She is missing out on good food. She just doesn't seem to have that desire for one of the biggest pleasures we have as humans- enjoying food! She is thin, and afraid if she ever got sick; she'd have no reserve. I am not offering her "dog meat" but to watch her faces, you'd think I was trying to poison her! She's impossible! I don't cook anything special for her and I do not let her make anything else. What I make is what she has to eat. Hoping she'll eventually break down and be really hungry to try the food. Am I wrong about this?

Answer 1

Make her what you are making for everyone else. If she doesn't eat it, take the food away. When she gets hungry, she will eat.

Answer 2

If she's says she's not hungry, take her at her word. Fix supper, offer it to her, she can eat it or not. However, if she chooses not to eat, then she doesn't get anything else. She learns that she either eats what everyone else eats or she goes hungry. Oh, and as for that gagging and spitting stuff out, don't allow it. She should be sent to her room immediately for the rest of the evening if she tries it.  

Answer 3

Umm I'm sure a lot of kids have this and grow out of it. I however never did. I was the same way as a kid and it never resolved. At 28 I can still only eat breads, pastas, fruits, etc. I have never in my life tried coffee, most veggies, or meats, etc.

I don't know about her but I went to a nutritionist and a psychiatrist finally as an adult and they said it was either a food aversion disorder (which is type of an anxiety disorder) or a sort of mild Aspergers Syndrome (Even though I don't have the social issues they suspected cause my brother had full blown Aspergers and food/sensory sensitivity is one thing they look for).  

It's probably nothing and she'll grow out of it. But just to be safe if you can afford it I would take her to see a psychiatrist or psychologist. I wish my parents had. I felt like once I finally saw one it was too late and the behaviors were ingrained.

Good luck.

Answer 4

She learned at an early age that you can be manipulated.  You never placed her in a position that she became hungry enough to eat different food.  She knows if she holds out, she gets her way. She may or may not grow out of it.  My nephew is a picky eater, unless he is at grandma's.  Grandma's philosophy is, "If I had to cook it, you got to eat it."  When she cooked a new dish, you had to eat at least one bite.  If you complained, you had to eat it all.  Right now, you have given her the choice of not eating something new and eating something else.  The choice should be, you can only eat something else if you try something new.  Book her on a guilt trip.  Some day she will be eating with her friends and they will have something she doesn't like.  She is going to have to learn to eat it so she does not insult the host.  This is just practice.

Answer 5

ok you wrote a lot, and i don't really have time to read all of that, pretty much all "10 y.o,"s are picky. just wait till she gets really hungry and needs to eat. make her watch man vs wild on discovery. suddenly eating your green veggies aint so bad.

Answer 6

When she doesn't want to eat what is set in front of her excuse her from the table and do not allow her to have anything else until the next meal.  I suggest that you start fixing breakfast for her rather than allowing her to simply pour herself cereal and also you make her lunches.  If she does not eat she goes hungry.  She is not going to starve to death missing a meal or two.  She is trying to control the menu and get her way so she can eat the foods she likes which are high in fat, high in starch and not nutritionally sound.  She needs vegetables and protien and a mulitvitamin can do only so much.