When last have you read Dr. Seuss’s book “Green Eggs and Ham”? Walk down memory lane with me.
The story begins with Sam, the ever-patient, long-suffering friend, offering his pal some food: “Do you like green eggs and ham?” he asks.
Our picky eater flat out refuses: “I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham.”
Sam proceeds to present the food in every imaginable way to tempt his friend’s refined palate: “Would you eat them in a house… with a mouse… in a box… with a fox… in the rain… on a train?” Sam is relentless. But the picky eater refuses each offer. Each refusal, however, spurs Sam on to find new ways to get him to try the new food.
At the end of the story, the exasperated picky eater gives in. He decides to taste the green eggs and ham, if only Sam will let him be.
And you guessed it… turns out he likes green eggs and ham! Sam’s hard work paid off.
This story is my motivation with the feeding struggles I experience with my son. I am the ever-relentless Sam, trying to get my baby to try new foods.
Picky eating or problem feeding is a struggle most autism moms and dads face on the daily. You may think picky eating is an ordinary toddler behavior, but let me explain the difference. I learned about this in one of Autism Belize’s invaluable trainings some months ago.
Picky Eaters versus Problem Feeders
| Picky Eaters | Problem Feeders |
| Eats more than 30 foods | Eats less than 20 foods |
| Tolerates new foods on plate and can usually touch or taste | Cries and falls apart when new foods introduced |
| Eats more than 1 food from most all food textures or nutrition groups | Refuses entire categories of food textures or nutrition groups or even color! |
| Average 15 steps to learn to eat a new food | More than 25 steps to interact with a new food |
My son is a problem feeder. He has been eating the same 10 or so foods for the last 3 years. He’s 5. He’s extremely sensitive to texture. And most of his foods are in the color range yellow to beige, for example, he eats:
Rice
Bread
Pasta
Fries
Chicken tacos
Yellow apples
Bananas
Plain yogurt
Vanilla or cheese cake ice cream
Oranges
The foods are all soft textured, the chicken is shredded and mushy, and all are yellowy beige. Most anything outside of his approved list is met with extreme resistance. He’d rather starve than eat watermelon. It’s red!
As you can imagine, it is very stressful for parents when our children don’t eat. This is one of our fundamental parental job descriptions: feed yo pikni. I worry about his nutrition. I worry if deficiencies in his diet will impact his growth. I worry if his selective eating will further isolate him from his peers. I attempt to offset his poor diet by loading him up on multivitamins and supplements and much prayer.
Why do people with autism struggle with diet?
Here’s what I learned:
- They fear new foods. Imagine biting into an egg sandwich, only to find it had eggshells in it. The crunch of the shell is off-putting and upsetting. This is what our kids experience. New foods can be really scary to them. Liam knows exactly what to expect from a banana. The watermelon holds too many unknowns. It’s safer to refuse it.
- They have sensory challenges. Successful eating requires more than just the sense of taste. All the body’s senses need to work together so we can eat. (We see the food, smell the aromas, hear the crunch, feel the textures.) Our senses are processed by different parts of the brain. When our kids struggle with one or more of these areas, it impacts their feeding skills.
- They may have other challenges. A successful feeding requires all areas of human function to be integrated. All the organs involved must work (digestive, endocrine, etc.) and all muscles need to work together (sitting upright, tongue muscles to swallow, etc.). An autistic person may have low muscle tone and so slouches while sitting. If his/her breathing and postural support are not optimal, eating will be impacted.
Learning more about the challenges autistic persons face has made me a better parent. I encourage you to do the same.
In the meantime, I channel Sam-I-am and continue offering him new foods. Special thank you to my neighbor friend who got Liam to eat waffles recently. He made it the perfect texture and just the right yellow color with no brown!
This sweet child of mine. 😊
