Feeding Aversion or Picky Eater?

While picky eaters may have preferences for certain foods and dislikes of others, food aversion is a more severe and complex issue. Food aversion typically involves a strong emotional or physical response to certain foods, textures, or smells. Both children and adults experience food aversion.

While orofacial myologists primarily focus on issues related to speech, swallowing, and oral habits, they can play a role in helping individuals with food aversion, especially if the aversion is related to specific oral-motor or sensory issues.

What is Feeding Aversion?

Feeding aversion occurs when a child—or even an infant—develops a persistent negative physical or emotional response to feeding. This can include distress, crying, turning away, refusing the bottle or breast, or shutting down when offered food. For many children with feeding aversion, mealtimes feel uncomfortable or frightening rather than enjoyable.

Feeding aversion is often rooted in experiences that made feeding painful or overwhelming (i.e. reflux, sensory sensitivities, difficulty coordinating sucking, swallowing and breathing). Because the child associates feeding with discomfort or fear, avoidance becomes a protective mechanism—not a choice.

Oral Aversion in Infants

Babies need proper nutrition to grow and thrive, and difficulties with feeding in infancy can be a worrisome and dangerous condition. There are many reasons a baby may struggle with feeding.

Sometimes the cause is medical, such as reflux, allergies, or anatomical differences. In other cases, the root issue is related to oral-motor coordination, sensory processing, or the baby’s overall experience with feeding. Understanding why a baby or child avoids eating is the first step toward helping them build a safe, enjoyable relationship with food.

What About Picky Eating?

Picky eating is very different. Most picky eaters want to eat but have preferences that limit what they’re willing to try. Their selectiveness typically develops in toddlerhood (18 months–3 years) as part of normal development. Classic picky eating includes:

• preferring certain textures or temperatures

• eating a handful of familiar foods

• rejecting new foods but accepting them with repeated exposure

• being sensitive, but not distressed, when disliked foods are offered

Picky eaters may frustrate parents, but they do not usually show fear, panic, or physical discomfort around food.

At Midwest Myofunctional Specialists, we assess the oral-motor, sensory, structural, and behavioral components of feeding. Whether your child is showing early signs of oral aversion or navigating the picky-eater stage, you’re not alone. With the right guidance, feeding can become a calmer, happier experience for the whole family.