Published on 12, July, 2020
I'd agree, you probably aren't looking at eating disorders, especially not at 4. You'd have to see some obsessive counting of weight and calories, or pre-occupation with her body to get concerned about that one, I suspect.
It could be that in tandem with any food sensitivities she has, her hunger trigger is inefficient. I know mine is. It's not completely absent, but there are a lot of times when my body just does not tell me when I'm hungry, so have to eat to timetable, otherwise I just well, forget.
You might try sending a food diary to nursery with her and ask them to note what she has or hasn't eaten that day, so you can get a sense of which food groups she may have had something of and then give her some multi-vits to compensate for what's missing.
Food sensitivities can come and go, a thing which was OK last week, might not be this week, but like wise something she rejected last week, might suddenly be eaten this week. All you can do is keep presenting her with small amounts of whatever you are preparing and cross your fingers she'll eventually eat it.
Will she drink fruit juice or smoothies, even if she won't eat a piece of fruit? That might work if the issue is texture, not obviously if it's taste.
You might offer a bit of raw veg. Whether that works will depend on what's up with veg for her. It used to work for me, though. If my mother cooked it, I wouldn't touch it and I still hate boiled veg - nauseating. But I'd happy compel on the raw heart of a cauliflower, she'd otherwise have thrown out. I think it was the smell. I love fresh smells and raw veg always smelt fresh. Cooked veg smelt putrid.
Before you head toward eating disorders, start with allergies and nutrition. Will she take a multi vitamin?
I am on a low FODMAP diet to start (though I can have small amounts of organic whole milk products - there is something fed to cows which isn't normal affecting non-organic milk which then I have a problem with). My unknown allergies started young. And no one suspected until I was hospitalised in my teens. Food can be modified beyond what the human body can process and like all other sensory issues, Autistics may be impacted first.
I cannot have Brassicas or Pulses or most grains except white rice, if there is contamination I cannot have milk products for a few weeks. I cannot digest spinach, so for salad stuff, I stick to the Daisy Botanical Family.
Pulses are Legumes which include the Peanut, which is not a nut. In fact, most of what we call nuts are actually seeds or drupes. True botanical nuts are chestnuts and hazelnuts. If I have even a tiny amount of something I cannot properly digest, I won't be able to eat for several days and it could be deadly if I do. Looking into history, most of what is difficult for me used to be fodder for animals. For some reason it's been cultivated and modified until most humans can handle these. I cannot eat broccoli.
Safe foods include roots like carrots and potatoes, all fruit and berries, nightshades without the seeds (de-seed tomatoes), cucurbits (melons, cucumber, squash). Corn is a funny one. No one knows where to put it, but I eat it. Along with meat. And then anything from the sea.
But this is me. It's taken 40+ years to work some of this out. I've discovered I can't chew through the skin of some non-organic produce. Organic is fine. But apparently there's a new modification GMO, teaching plants to toughen their skin as an insecticide. And then we could get into what's in the soil.
Make sure she's hydrated and try fruit in yogurt. Frozen Berries. Sometimes kids love 100% juice in the form of an ice lolly. What fruit is in the yogurt she eats? Another thing to do for health is a spoonful of honey a day (so long as she doesn't have an allergy). Local honey is best.
Will she go black berry picking? Does she like tinned fruit in fruit juice? I gave my son nut bars, breakfast bars, power bars when he was young. Even a little Nutella can be helpful to acquire the taste for hazelnuts & palm oil does have some nutrients to it. My diet sounds like it is without fibre, but the right kind of fibre is needed.
Kids don't need much! And a lot of what adults eat is to make up for nutrition we're missing which children still have.