Welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition, brought to you by nutritional weight and wellness.

Today we are going to address a concern many parents have, what to do about their picky eater.

We understand how frustrating it is to sit down to the dinner table night after night, meal after meal with a picky eater who just doesn't want to eat anything

you have made. Maybe you've even started making separate meals for your child because you're

feeling desperate for them to eat. Well, if you have a picky eater at your table, you are not

alone because 20% of children today are picky eaters. Yes, 20%

that means one out of five children are picky eaters. Some children outgrow this, but not all of them.

And then there are, of course, there are therapists who specialize in picky eating

behavior, and they often suggest having a calm eating environment. They work on introducing

new foods slowly to desensitized food textures and tastes. And these can be effective and

helpful techniques. But for me, the question I ask as a nutrition professional

is, why did a picky eater become one in the first place? As a dietitian, I look at the issue

through another lens, at some other, maybe less traditional possible causes. Today we are going to discuss

several possible reasons. A child or even adult may become a picky eater. So what we're going to

talk about today may shed some light on how people, and in particular,

children evolve into those picky eaters.

Speaking from experience, both personally and professionally, dealing with a picky eater, oh my gosh,

is incredibly frustrating.

But as we take a deeper look at the topic during the segment today, we're going to learn that picky eating stems from your child's body trying to cope with something that's out of balance.

And as strange as this actually may sound, they're actually not trying to be picky to be difficult.

And just to introduce myself, I am Christy Kalinsky.

I am a registered and licensed dietitian, and I actually have some professional experience

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