Experts say that parents may get signs of serious mental problems in their children if they are fussy eating. A study has suggested that parents and doctors need to get rid of an illusion that a passing phase of food businesses will be panacea to all food-related problems.

A new research has showed that significantly increased levels of depression and anxiety in a population of more than 3000 children aged two to six was even linked to moderate picky eating.

Odds of getting diagnosed with depression are two times higher in those with highly selective eating habits than normal eaters. Lead researcher Dr. Nancy Zucker, 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”.

Published in the journal Pediatrics, the study found selective eating habit in more than a fifth of the children. Nearly 18% of them were classified as moderately picky and about 3% as severely selective.

Symptoms of anxiety and other mental problems were exhibited by children with both moderate and severely selective eating habits.

Dr. Zucker said that limited or selective eating has started causing problems in these children. Such a habit poses threat to child’s health, growth, social functioning, and the parent-child relationship.

Selective eating is likely to be developed by all children in adulthood, but impairment in these children’s health and wellbeing now makes it very essential to develop ways to help these parents and doctors know when and how to intervene.