By Majd Othman

KUWAIT: Many parents struggle to convince their young kids to consume healthy foods or specific kind of products they believe are necessary for their growth. The daily battle to force children to eat healthy often includes fights and yelling as parents deal with what many of them describe as 'unjustified stubbornness' of their kids.

But Consultant and Lecturer in Mental Health and Educational Family Huda Al-Jaser thinks that stubbornness is not the main reason that makes kids refuse healthy or any specific types of food, as she told Kuwait Times that there are several psychological and physical factors that affect their choices, in addition to the actions of the parents that could further drive children away from eating a specific type of food.

The consultant mentioned that the physical reasons are considered a serious factor that most parents don't pay attention to, stressing that some kids are allergic to specific types of food that their bodies would not accept, as it makes them feel unwell if they were forced to eat it. Such foods may include meats, dairies or legumes.

Huda Al-Jaser

"If kids were refusing to eat all kind of healthy food at an important age of their nourishment and the growth of their bodies such as fruits, vegetables or food full of vitamins, parents must start worrying due to its affect to their immunity," Jaser said. "Despite that, the actions or methods that most of the parents use to urge their kids to eat, such as forcing them, using verbal abuse or asking the house helper to chase the kids at home, is not probably the best way to convince them," she added.

"Therefore, parents must use the dialogue method with their kids, while using a lower voice tone that is free from verbal abuse. Explaining the benefits of the specific food they refuse to eat and the damage it may cause to their bodies if they would not eat it helps way more than the current methods used by the parents," Jaser pointed out.

The consultant mentioned that there are many kids who grew up hating specific types of food because their parents forced them to eat them when they were children, relating the psychological state of mind of the kid with the food they were forced to eat back then.

Regarding the physical part, Jaser said that not all the reasons for children refusing to eat specific types of food is related to psychological aspect. "Parents should do medical examinations for their child if they noticed constant rejection for specific types of food to make sure they do not have a health problem such as being allergic to certain types of food," she said.

The consultant stressed that forcing children to eat is strictly prohibited and parents need to explain for the kids the importance of eating healthy food, adding that "When the parent succeeds to convince their child to eat the food they refuse, then the child returns to the old behavior afterward and says they can't eat this type of food, it should be an alarm for the parent that there are serious signs in the child's body that requires medical examinations, which could explain the problem if any, and helps the parent to provide their child with the right food."

Regarding the effect of online videos and social media on children's eating habits, Jaser agrees that more children are recently picking specific types of food as a result of what they see through online videos or media platforms. "With the spread of Korean series, many children recently prefer eating noodles because they watch it in shows where kids in come back from their schools and eat this type of food for their lunch," the consultant explained. "All social media platforms have content that encourage kids to imitate behavior they see, including the great spread of children videos that are full of unhealthy food content," She added.

"One of the cases that I worked with was a kid who refused to eat meat due to the scenes of blood and sacrifices that he saw online, which affected his appetite to eat it, and as a result of his young age, it did not help him to properly understand the idea of eating meat," she further noted.

"The effect of social media may reach teenagers as well," she pointed out. "Many mothers complain that their teenaged kids prefer eating at restaurants and order food at home, and refuse eating healthy food due the huge amounts of food advertisements that they see everywhere on social media, in addition to competition and imitation among teenagers which was created by the influence of social media."