Picky Eating in children with Autism.

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This is a very common problem in children with Autism. Most of the children with Autism are fussy or picky eaters and will eat only certain kinds of food.  A big reason for this is sensory issues and the way certain types of foods feel in their mouth. This creates difficulties for parents to feed their kids with a wide variety of foods to grow and thrive.

Our son is a picky eater to this day. Right from the beginning he showed a preference for crunchy textured foods. He started disliking foods which were mushy or creamy in texture. This continues till today and he is very reluctant to even try or put those foods in his mouth.

Children in general love junk food which has no nutritional value. My son loved eating junk foods. We did try to introduce him to a variety of foods when he was a toddler but we were unsuccessful in our attempts.  The good thing with my son is from the early days he started eating regular home-cooked food and disliked eating fast food.

This a list of food which he eats regularly to this day. It includes Rice, Lentils, Banana, Eggs, some vegetables like okra, potato, carrots, and peas.and chicken. This list does include healthy food but it is very difficult to cook for him every day. Taking lunch to school is another problem which parents have to deal with every day. My son now is in high school but all through the elementary school years, I gave him chicken nuggets every single day. when I sent anything else other than chicken nuggets he used to skip eating lunch. His teachers advised if he ate only chicken nuggets that is what I had to pack every day.

We did try to take him to the Feeding clinic to help him with picky eating and introduce him to a wide variety of foods but he did not respond very well to it. I hope with time he is open to trying different foods so we can feed him a more balanced diet.

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