Many kids on the autism spectrum struggle to eat fruits and veggies. One parent even asked me: “why is green so hard?”
At times it seems like it’s something against the vegetable itself, but really, it’s nothing personal against vegetables. Surprisingly your kid probably isn’t avoiding veggies because they’re yucky. She’s also not eating them because they’re “grownup foods”.
Instead, it’s entirely possible that your child isn’t eating these foods because she either doesn’t know how to, isn’t getting the opportunity to, or doesn’t like how they challenge her sensory system.
Read below for tips on what to do for each of these situations.
If your child can’t eat vegetables
We’re used to thinking eating is easy, but it’s a lot more complicated than it looks. Eating is in fact a learned skill and one that some autistic kids don’t have mastered. Vegetables can be tricky to eat. Each bite of the same food is different. Vegetables might have thick skins, seeds, and/or crumbly tops (I’m looking at you, broccoli and cauliflower). These don’t challenge a person with adequate chewing skills, but someone who doesn’t know how to manipulate food in his or her mouth will find this difficult and might avoid eating these foods. If you suspect your child is struggling with the oral-motor skills required to eat certain foods or textures, I suggest reaching out to a speech and language pathologist, an occupational therapist, or a doctor.
If your child isn’t getting the opportunity to eat vegetables
We’ve all been here: You serve your child veggies. He doesn’t eat them. You keep trying. The outcome doesn’t change. So finally, you stop. You stop serving veggies and you just keep filling his plate with foods he does eat.
A similar situation: Your child doesn’t like being around others when they eat. You keep trying to have meals together, but she always has a meltdown and even refuses to eat when other food is around and when other people are eating. After a few tries at family meals, you just give up all together. She needs to eat. She doesn’t eat when you’re eating. So you serve two different meals at different times.
These are both incredibly understandable situations. Your number one goal is for your child to eat and you’ll do anything to make that happen. The really frustrating thing is, while these accommodations do help your child eat in the moment, they halt her eating development in the long run. That is, serving your child her favorite foods and serving your child meals all on her own doesn’t teach her about new foods, provide her with exposures to new foods, show examples of how others eat, or give her the opportunity to try new foods. These four experiences are key to helping your child expand her diet,
The easiest way to get your child to start eating veggies is to serve them and to model eating them yourself. That means veggies at every meal and shared meal times whenever possible.
You can find tons of tips about how to get started with those two goals below:
If sensory symptoms are preventing your child from eating vegetables
Sensory symptoms can be a major barrier to eating fruits and veggies. Fruits and veggies can complex textures and big flavors. Some of them smell or the color is too intense for a kid with visual sensitivities. Sensory sensitivities are the primary eating struggle I see.
The good thing is that many kids overcome sensory barriers to eating and learn to expand their diets. The thing you might not want to hear is that this can take a lot of time and effort for everyone involved with feeding.
While there are lots of ways to cure sensory food aversions, they all share the general concept of desensitization or making the body feel more comfortable with the sensory feedback of eating and being around food. This can happen through hands-on experiences with food as well as repeated food exposures.
I go into a lot of detail about how you can work on this at home in the following articles:
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Food Texture Aversion in Autistic Kids: 3 Ways to Help Your Picky Eater
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10 things worth buying to dramatically improve your ASD child’s relationship with food
Recap
There’s nothing specific to vegetables themselves that turn kids off. Instead, kids may avoid eating vegetables because they don’t have the chewing skills, don’t get the opportunity, or can’t handle the sensory symptoms.
Homework
Identify which barriers may be preventing your child from enjoying vegetables. You then might need to seek a professional evaluation, create more opportunities for introducing vegetables, or work on acclimating the sensory system.
AND! Personalized Support
My signature nutrition program is perfectly designed for kids with autism who have limited diets, struggle to add new foods, and may not be eating the nutrients they need. You can sign up for a free call to learn more about how it works and how I can help change your child’s diet for good .
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