Sometimes parents are faced with strange situations: the child begins to feast on chalk, eats sand, earth from a flowerpot, eats snow with great pleasure and licks the sulfur from matches. The first thing that comes to mind is a consequence of a deficiency of certain substances or vitamins in his body. But this behavior does not always indicate a state of lack of useful micro and macro elements in the diet.
What's happening?
There is something that is usually not accepted, children start for two reasons. First of all - out of simple childish curiosity. Taste buds are an important cognitive tool for a child, and the baby tastes the world as much as his upbringing, living conditions and parents allow him to taste and taste. But it’s one thing to taste inedible one or a couple of times, and quite another to systematically eat what is unsuitable for food.
If a child constantly eats something that is not accepted, it is imperative to consult a doctor. It is possible that he develops allotriophagia - an eating disorder in which a person eats inedible things.
In the adult population of the planet, this phenomenon is relatively rare - only 1% of adult men and women regularly eat inedible food. But with children, everything is different. Allotriophagy affects up to 15% of preschoolers, and up to the age of 4 years, up to 32% of children tend to eat inedible.
Whether this is dangerous depends on what the child prefers. Chalk will not harm health, but glass, sand, small metal objects can pose a serious danger to the life and health of the crumb.
Allotriophagy is of two types: pathological, characteristic of feeble-minded, mentally ill people who simply do not realize that they are trying to chew, and also children's - physiological. It proceeds against the background of perversion of taste perception, while the child is mentally healthy and other oddities in his behavior and development are not noted.
In most cases, the child eats inedible foods in addition to his or her main normal diet.... And only in rare cases allotriophagy is total in nature, when the baby replaces normal foods with paint, sand, clay, wood, paper or something that he likes, refusing to eat ordinary foods.
Why is he doing this?
This is the main question that torments parents. It should be noted that in childhood it is almost impossible to establish the exact causes of allotriophagy.
There are several common root causes for particularly persistent parents.
Difficult family relationships... Psychiatrists believe that this factor is decisive. Too demanding upbringing, humiliation of a child, lack of love and care, neglect, domestic violence, including psychological, lack of toys, attention may well provoke an eating disorder.
Emotional and psychological trauma... Usually the first meal with paper clips or candy wrappers falls on the period of some events that caused a strong emotional shock in the child. So, allotriophagy can develop in a child in the epicenter of hostilities and natural disasters, after the death of a loved one, after violence.
Specific lack of certain amino acids, macronutrients, vitamins... For example, the desire to eat chalk is associated with a lack of calcium, and sulfur from matches is unconsciously chosen by a child if there is not enough sulfur and phosphorus in his body.
Hormonal disorders... For this reason, oddities and food "quirks" occur in pregnant women. And it is the imbalance of hormones that causes food perversion in adolescents. But even in babies, the endocrine background may be disrupted in terms of the balance of hormones that affect the sense of smell and taste.
Mental disorders... Usually, allotriophagy occurs in children with schizophrenia, severe mental retardation, oligophrenia, autism.
What might be missing?
If a child eats dirt or soil from a flowerpot, it can be assumed that he has a lack of iron in the body. Need a blood testto assess the hemoglobin level and find out exactly if the baby has anemia.
Eating soil and clay in itself is dangerous, because it is in this environment that the eggs of many parasites, cysts, bacteria that can cause serious diseases are best preserved.
The desire to chew on icicles, by the way, is also often associated with a lack of iron. Systemic poor nutrition, unbalanced, insufficient causes a desire to gnaw wood, matches, coal. The child begins to eat soap not only because of its attractive smell, but also because of the lack of zinc in the body. And salt is absorbed by a pinch of the child, most likely due to a lack of sodium. Children begin to eat hair with a lack of amino acids.
What to do?
Before you start feeding your child with loading doses of a substance that, in your parental opinion, he lacks, it is worth visiting a doctor. You can turn to the most ordinary pediatrician. This specialist will prescribe the necessary examination in this case. - general and biochemical blood test. Their results will help you understand if your baby needs iron, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, selenium and other substances.
If the tests are good, and the child seems mentally healthy to the doctor, it may be recommended to take a blood test for a hormonal profile, as well as visit a child psychologist or psychotherapist who will help find and eliminate possible psychogenic causes of an eating disorder.
For the treatment of allotriophagy, no special drugs have been created. If analyzes show a lack of certain vitamins and elements, either a complex multivitamin preparation or a specific vitamin or mineral is recommended. With hormonal imbalance, treatment is prescribed by an endocrinologist and it consists in eliminating a deficiency or excess of certain hormones.
Treatment of severe allotriophagy is to provide the child with psychotherapeutic assistance, which will include family lessons, art therapy, hypnotherapy for adolescents.
It is noteworthy that a new toy sometimes helps to cope with the problem. - playfulness reduces the child's need for inedible food. In case of allotriophagy in mentally ill babies, the treatment is carried out by a psychiatrist.
Dr. Komarovsky and his colleagues urge parents to start trying to change the approach to the formation of the child's diet, to pay attention to what he is doing and what he needs.
You will learn more about the correct formation of the child's diet by watching the following video.
