Food Jags

A child will only eat

1. Vegemite sandwich (white bread, no crust, with butter – not margarine), plus

2. SPC apple & strawberry purée and

3. Cow’s milk, meal after meal, for days in a row.

You say “Well, that’s ok. It’s not like she’s only eating sausage, Oreos and Coca-Cola!” So, you keep allowing, well… offering, the same three foods you know will fill your kid’s belly and she won’t go hungry. Because “Kids need to eat something. They can’t leave the table with nothing in their belly, right?”

For the fear of children starving, parents and other caregivers often – TOO OFTEN, I must say – give in and serve only their desired foods at every meal, for days in a row. Never challenging the child’s demand for one or very few particular foods. After all, they have to eat something!

Well, hang on!

There is a problem that this habit can bring and it is called FOOD JAGGING.

WHAT IS IT?

Food jagging is when a child will only eat one food item, or very few food items, meal after meal.

WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?

The reason most experts give for food jags is the seek for independence which is a big drive of young children’s behaviour. It’s the age children are testing their boundaries and one habit they may develop to express that is to try to control their food intake.

Another reason for food jagging is a cognitive leap that happens at three stages of children’s life: at age 2-3, then again at 5-7 years and again at 9-11 years. Because the child’s brain is so occupied learning a huge number of new things from new angles, it will ‘shut down’ its sensory processing parts for a while and cause a period of sensory regression which will make them avoid sensory stimulation, including avoiding eating foods they don’t yet love or that change slightly every time (piece size or shape, colour, texture etc) because the brain finds is hard to interpret. Each stage normally lasts a few weeks. And it can also happen out of the cognitive leap periods.

WHAT PROBLEMS DOES IT CAUSE?

Allowing for food jags can make it become an ingrown habit that limits a child’s food intake, with too few food items, for a long period of time, if not for life.

Another problem food jags bring is that children, seeking standardised foods that never change in characteristics like colour, shape, texture, taste and smell, will favour mostly ultra-processed, packaged foods as these foods are developed and manufactured in a way that they never change. And you already know about the health risks ultra-processed foods can bring when consumed regularly, right? The same with fast foods like Mc Donald’s hot chips and chicken nuggets, for example. They are also standardised and nutrient poor.

But the major concern with food jags is that children will eventually get sick of those foods after a while and simply scrape them from their ‘safe’ list forever, if nothing is done to revert the situation. Food jagging is actually what can cause a child to become a fussy eater!

HOW TO AVOID AND TO STOP IT?

In many cases, food jags last a few weeks, so simply continuing serving the jagged food alongside other foods and not making a big deal of it is what most health professionals recommend. But, if it drags for more than a month, it is important to not allow for the same food to be served two days consecutively, with the exception of milk.

When families that work with me report this behaviour is happening, I recommend them to immediately change the feeding pattern, and serve the foods the child is jagging on only every two or three days, if possible. This is only sustainable when the child eats a fair range of different foods, of course. Stopping the behaviour in the beginning will avoid the child to burn out on those foods which would reduce their list of accepted foods even further!

BENEFITS OF NOT ALLOWING FOR FOOD JAGS

By not allowing your child to jag on foods will reduce the chances they get bored and tired of those foods and eventually stop eating them.

Also, it will give you more opportunities to offer and even introduce other foods which will broaden the range of foods your child is exposed to and, eventually, eats. And I don’t have to remind you of the benefits of variety in the diet, right?

Knowing how to recognise food jags is very handy to avoid potentially getting into the black hole of fussy eating. Once you spot the problem, you can then act upon it. It can be challenging, but it will be worth the effort! 😉

References:

1. SOS Approaching to Feeding, Dr. Kay Toomey (2018).

2. Food Jags Explained. Tasmanian Dept of Health http://health.tas.gov.au/healthykids/blog/food_jags_explained