A very common and alarmingly increasing problem amongst children these days is their lack of appetite or their fussiness when it comes to eating food properly. Children who are fussy eaters or those who have small appetites obviously suffer from a lack of proper nutrition which leads to them becoming irritable and having weak constitutions. This in turn leads to a host of other problems, such as constant fatigue and irritability, lack of concentration and hyperactivity, frequent colds and other infections and a poor resistance to the various diseases that affect children. While most children go through a phase of fussy eating and a certain lack of interest in the food being served to them, it is important to be careful not to let this develop in to a habit and to carefully monitor your child’s eating habits and provide a well balanced diet.
In order to ensure that your child gets all the essential nutrients, you should work consciously towards building the right eating habits in your child right from infancy by altering the types of foods you give him/her. Despite the increasing availability of packaged foods and the distractions of junk foods and sweets, you should insist on proper meals with provide all the nutrients. This of course means that you have to take an extra effort to make the meals interesting for your child, by identifying what kind of foods he/she likes and altering the way you present certain foods that he/she does not like in order to make it more appealing. Avoid giving your child a snack or letting him/her nibble on chips or other junk food close to meal times, since this ruins the appetite. Instead you can offer your child a glass of fresh fruit juice which is rich in nutrient value and will not affect the appetite. Most children tend to get distracted during meal times if they are in front of a television set, and this affects their appetite, so you should never switch on the television while they are eating. Make sure that at least one meal a day is a family meal and focus on your child giving him/her proper attention. This is extremely important in making the child feel secure and helps to gradually reduce the problem of picky eating. In addition to all this, you can also increase your child’s intake of Vitamin C which helps the body to increase its resistance and stimulates protein synthesis.
answered by M W