Researchers found that ‘moderate’ pickiness was associated with ‘significantly increased’ levels of depression and anxiety in more than 3,000 children aged two to six.
Children who were perceived to have ‘highly selective eating habits’ were more than twice as likely as those without ‘normal’ eating habits to have a diagnosis of depression.
Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study found that more than a fifth of the children were selective eaters. Of these, nearly 18% were classified as ‘moderately picky’ and about 3% seen as ‘severely selective’.
Dr. Nancy Zucker, lead researcher and director of the Duke Centre for Eating Disorders in the US, said: “The question for many parents and physicians is: when is picky eating truly a problem?
“The children we’re talking about are not just misbehaving kids who refuse to eat their broccoli.”