An insatiable appetite in a child can worry a lot of parents. Concerns regarding a child’s development and health may arise if they refuse food or eat very little of it. But not every instance of decreased appetite indicates a significant issue.
Renowned pediatrician Dr. Komarovsky provides helpful guidance on how to handle this circumstance. He stresses the significance of being aware of your child’s needs and avoiding unwarranted pressure when it comes to feeding them.
This post will discuss Dr. Komarovsky’s suggestions for dealing with a child’s lack of appetite, with an emphasis on setting up a wholesome and comfortable dining environment. His suggestions can assist parents in resolving issues without turning mealtimes into a conflict.
| Problem | Advice from Dr. Komarovsky |
| Child refuses to eat | Don"t force them to eat, respect their appetite |
| Worried about nutrition | Focus on offering healthy, balanced meals, not forcing food |
| Snacks between meals | Avoid snacks between meals to encourage hunger |
| Child prefers sweets | Limit sugary foods and offer more fruits and vegetables |
| Concern about child"s weight | If your child is active and growing, don"t worry about temporary lack of appetite |
| Family mealtime conflicts | Create a relaxed and stress-free environment during meals |
- Appetite can be different
- Why the child does not eat?
- Parental mistakes
- Video on the topic
- Decreased appetite in children. Advice to parents
- What to do if a child is gaining less weight than normal? – Dr. Komarovsky
- When poor appetite really becomes a problem? – Dr. Komarovsky
- Appetite pill – Dr. Komarovsky
- The child eats little. Reasons for selective appetite.
- The child refuses to eat. How to make a child eat? Dr. Komarovsky | Question to the doctor
- What to do if the child does not want to eat? – Dr. Komarovsky
Appetite can be different
Food is necessary for survival, but hunger does not always translate into hunger. When the body requires food to replenish its energy reserves in order to survive, a natural appetite is triggered. And modern man is far more frequently accompanied by selective appetite. A young child prefers cookies over porridge because he likes cookies better.
A breastfed child’s selective appetite only reflects their true needs; at 8 or 9 months, for example, he instinctively knows that he needs calcium and won’t eat soup. It’s not that the soup tastes bad; rather, milk is a healthier option. For the same reason, children prefer dairy products when they are one or two years old.
Even if a one-year-old child abstains from eating meat on principle, it doesn’t mean that at three or four years old, he won’t start to enjoy it. Simply put, fruits, vegetables, cottage cheese, and milk are more crucial for a 12-month-old baby. And he has an intuitive understanding of it.
When a child is closer to three years old, Komarovsky believes that the issue of selective appetite is ridiculous. If the child refuses to eat anything but chocolate and sausage, this is likely a parent-child pedagogical error, and there is no need to investigate any medical causes for this behavior.
Why the child does not eat?
Komarovsky suggests that a baby may refuse to eat for one of two reasons: either he cannot eat or he does not want to.
Cannot: This indicates that there is a desire to eat, but it is physically impossible. For instance, the porridge doesn’t taste bad, the mother’s milk is tasteless (because she ate something incorrectly), and the nipple hole is too small. When an infant is sucking, their intestines frequently start working hard because their peristalsis is triggered at the incorrect moment. The baby’s stomach contorts, causing him to stop eating and cry out in agony.
The mouth is frequently the source of a child’s appetite issues. The process of absorbing food can be made uncomfortable by stomatitis, inflamed gums during teething, and gum microtraumas (scratches from toys that have been in the mouth or from nails).
Acute respiratory viral infections and colds can occasionally cause an appetite loss. If the nose is not breathing, the child will stop eating because their access to oxygen is obstructed during sucking, which is uncomfortable. The refusal to eat is almost guaranteed if the throat hurts and swallowing is uncomfortable.
A child may not always enjoy the food because it is large or mashed, too hot or too cold, salted or unsalted.
Everything in this situation is dependent on the individual child’s preferences. If parents are able to discern that their child is hungry but is unable to eat, it is advisable to seek medical advice in order to identify and remove the hindrance preventing the infant from eating regularly.
If a child eats poorly or not at all, it’s not because he has bad eating experiences; rather, it’s just that he doesn’t want to eat. But you shouldn’t demand that the porridge be consumed and accuse him of hooliganism right away. Reluctance to eat can also be caused by:
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Illness. Even if the parents haven"t noticed that the baby is getting sick, he himself, as a rule, begins to feel negative changes in his body in advance. In this case, a child who doesn"t eat anything simply "turns on" a protective mechanism – on an empty stomach it is easier for the immune system to fight the pathogen. You shouldn"t force-feed the baby, he does everything correctly, as his natural instincts tell him. But this is only true for acute infections. If the child has a long-term chronic disease, lack of appetite is a bad symptom, but this is rare. A child"s body easily gets used to new conditions, and therefore, during a protracted illness, a child begins to eat as usual, and with some ailments, for example, with diabetes, even an increased appetite is observed. Komarovsky gives certain recommendations on how to feed a sick child: in no way until he asks for himself. And mom should not be ashamed at all that she does not feed the sick child. This is the best that she can now do for his speedy recovery.
- Refusal of food "by belief". This happens with teenage children, especially with girls. If she suddenly decides that she became “fat”, and it is necessary to “urgently do something about it”, offer the child lighter and useful products (salads, boiled meat, fruits, milk). If the girl refuses to eat, then starvation becomes pathological and is quite comparable to the symptom of mental illness, which leads to anorexia and slow death or disability of the girl. In this situation, feeding by force is also not a way out, Komarovsky says, since it is necessary to eliminate the true cause of the hunger strike. A psychiatrist and an adolescent psychologist or psychotherapist will help with this.
- Refusal to eat without reason. There are also children who eat little or practically do not want to eat without any illness. According to Komarovsky, they still have their own reasons for not wanting to eat, such as individual metabolic characteristics. After all, in one child digestion occurs faster, nutrients are absorbed and assimilated faster, while in others the process is slower. Therefore, such a “slow” child refuses a cooked lunch, because he still has breakfast in the process of being processed.
Hormone levels determine appetite.
A child will be larger and more frequently than his peer who is genetically "not destined" for tallness if he grows faster (his parents are tall).
The degree of energy expenditure has an impact on appetite as well. A child will become hungry more quickly when running and jumping in the open air than when watching cartoons on TV.
A child’s appetite can frequently be restored by making small adjustments to their energy expenditure, such as walking more or enrolling them in a sports program. Ultimately, taking evening walks as a family before supper will undoubtedly have a positive effect.
Dr. Komarovsky counsels parents to maintain composure and refrain from pressuring a child to eat when they are not hungry because this can lead to unfavorable associations with food. Rather, he advises providing a range of healthful foods, making sure the child is active, and establishing consistent mealtimes without placing undue pressure on them. He emphasizes that occasional fluctuations in appetite are usually not a reason for concern if the child is growing and developing normally.
Parental mistakes
Parents frequently attempt to treat imaginary illnesses. It can be challenging for parents to acknowledge that their child’s lack of eating is a result of improper parenting if there are no severe acute pathologies or infections in the child. After that, they begin testing, and the results are consistently diagnosed as "seeming to not existing," meaning that the time and money spent on their care is wasted.
Komarovsky suggests changing the child’s daily routine and way of life by introducing longer walks, cool baths, and sports, as well as stopping dragging him to clinics and laboratories and leaving him alone.
Much of the time, parents make their kids eat.
Among these movements are some of Yevgeny Komarovsky’s most well-known, devious pranks: "See, the spoon flew-flew," "Eat, or we won’t go to the park!", and "I’ll tell dad everything!" When pressed, a baby will eat, but it won’t be hungry. This implies that the liver will perform its portion of the job more slowly, less gastric juice will be secreted, and digestion will be challenging. Force feeding has more negative effects than positive ones.
It is also wrong to give food that is not age-appropriate. If a one-year-old child does not eat in pieces, demanding pureed food, this may be quite justified. If he has only 2 teeth in his mouth, then there is simply nothing to chew the pieces with. However, mothers who have read that pieces will definitely stimulate the rest of the teeth to grow faster immediately sound the alarm: they say, the appetite has disappeared. Komarovsky urges to realistically assess the capabilities of your child. No one asks to puree his food until 5-7 years old, but to make it digestible, at least until 6-8 teeth come out, is quite within the power of any parents.
It’s normal for parents to become concerned when their child doesn’t seem hungry. But as Dr. Komarovsky suggests, it’s critical to maintain composure and refrain from pressuring the child to eat. Pushing food can exacerbate the issue by creating unfavorable associations with mealtimes.
During meals, setting up a calm and cheerful environment can aid in promoting a greater appetite. It’s a good idea to provide a range of nutritious foods without putting undue pressure on the child to eat everything on the plate. Schedules should not dictate when children eat; instead, they should be allowed to eat when they are hungry.
It’s also critical to take the child’s general wellbeing into account. They may not need to be concerned about a brief decrease in appetite if they are healthy, active, and growing. However, it’s always a good idea to see a pediatrician for further guidance if the lack of appetite doesn’t go away or if there are other symptoms.
