Food Glorious Food! - The Potential Ability Group (TPAG)

September 15th, 2016Mary RobsonFood

I love all food and am not fussy with any texture or taste…mostly anyway! But OT’s at The Potential Ability Group work with clients who only eat certain foods and are scared to try new foods, which goes beyond being picky eaters. It can effects a family’ whole life- as eating is as close to breathing on the survival scale!!

Why is it such a problem?

Eating isn’t all about getting food into your belly- there are complex bodily processes occurring to make it happen. There is also lots of sensory aspects to food- how the food looks, feels, smells, tastes and even what sounds it makes in the mouth when it’s eaten.

Making Food Fun!

Food doesn’t need to be boring or just what we eat on a plate or in a lunchbox. At The Potential Ability Group, your OT will support your child play with their food! This is called food modelling- where food is presented in multisensory ways. This is to make food less threatening and safe for the child to experiment with. When a child is exposed to this less threatening experience over a period of time, they are more likely to want to try the food. Some examples of food play are; making car tracks out of pasta, necklaces out of nutri-grain, hiding toys in coloured rice for the child to find and/or making faces out of different pieces of food.

Recommendations such as the ones below can also be made by your OT for mealtimes such as:

Changing the appearance and texture (even colour!) of a new food so that it is more acceptable to the child.
Changing the portion size of the food given, even what plate/bowl it is presented on.
Increasing proximity to the food each time, introducing foods that have the same sensory properties (in vision, smell, texture).
Adding small amounts of non-preferred food to the child’s preferred food. Increase the amount of the non-preferred food if the child is tolerating the change.
Reading social stories about trying different foods- helping child understand that food can be eaten in lots of different situations.

If you feel you have tried everything and would like some support getting your child to try new foods, give food play a try and contact us to organise an appointment to discuss the challenges with one of our OTs. WE MAKE FOOD FUN!!!

References

Mosheim, J 2011, ‘Food chaining- Helping Children with Feeding Disorders expand their diets’, Advance Health Network, May 18 2011, viewed 20th June 2016, <http://occupational-therapy.advanceweb.com/Features/Articles/Helping-Children-with-Feeding-Disorders-Expand-Their-Diet.aspx>.

Nadon G, Feldman D, Gisel E 2013, ‘Feeding issues associated with the Autism Spectrum Disorders’, Intech, 2013, vol 1, chapter 25, pp 599—632.