What is a food jag?

A ‘food jag’ is when a child eats the same foods prepared in the same way, every day or at every meal.  Eventually they are likely to get ‘burned out’ on these foods and they are usually lost from the child’s diet permanently. This process may continue to happen until there are very few foods left that the child will eat.

This is more common in children with feeding difficulties, although children without significant feeding difficulties might also go through food jags during developmental leaps. They will usually accept these foods again in a few weeks though.

If a child’s diet is otherwise varied, eating a particular food daily is not necessarily a problem, for example, if your child eats a varied, balanced diet but has an apple with their lunch every day, this would not be considered to be a ‘food jag’.

How to prevent food jags

Try to avoid offering the same food twice in any two-day period.

It might help to make a list of all foods your child eats on a regular basis, then write out a two-day menu, where each meal includes a starchy food, a protein and a fruit or vegetable, such as pasta, sausages and carrot sticks.

If three meals are eaten each day, you will need six of each food group for two days.

How to manage existing food jags

If your child already has food jags, you can try the following.

1. Working with one food at a time, starting with the child’s least nutritious food, gradually change one sensory property of the food at a time, for example shape, colour, taste, then lastly texture.
2. Get your child to make the change to the food initially, such as encouraging them to use a cookie cutter to change the shape of their bread or point out to them the way the shape changes after they’ve taken a bite so they notice the difference.
3. Once your child has made a few changes by their self, see if they will let you make the changes for them.
4. It is important that the changes you make are noticeable for your child but not so big that it causes them distress. If this happens, it means the change was too big for them and you will need to try again with a smaller change. Bear in mind it can take a few days to get used to a change and a few weeks to adjust to a new habit. Leave two weeks between making each change.

Example

Emily will only eat plain round cookies for her snack.

1. Change the shape. Emily is encouraged to make different shaped cookies using cookie cutters.
2. Change the colour. Emily uses food colourings to change the colour of her cookies –involving her in the process helps as she can see how the colour change has happened
3. Change the taste. Emily uses smooth peanut butter to make peanut butter flavoured cookies. Aim to change the flavour slightly by adding lemon juice, food flavourings or milkshake powders.
4. Change the texture. Emily has added dried fruit and peanuts to her cookie dough.