Kids Feeding Wellness

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Kids Feeding Wellness Pediatric feeding & swallowing support for families | Argie Karakalpakidis, MS, CCC-SLP, TSSLD, CLC

10/09/2026

Sometimes what looks like picky eating is actually a sign that something else is going on.

When a child is eating only a handful of foods, avoiding anything new, and struggling at mealtimes, we need to look beyond what’s happening on the plate.

Constipation, belly pain, reflux, and feeling full after just a few bites can all influence a child’s appetite, comfort, and willingness to eat.

Feeding challenges rarely happen in isolation. There are often multiple factors influencing how a child experiences food, and understanding those connections is an important part of helping them move forward.

If you’re noticing patterns like these, bring them up with your child’s pediatrician and ask whether a feeding evaluation or additional medical support is needed.

Your observations matter. The earlier we understand what’s making eating difficult, the sooner we can provide the right support.

Watch our full YouTube video, Medical Factors That Impact Feeding, where we explore how underlying medical concerns can affect a child’s relationship with food - link in bio!

10/02/2026

I truly treasure my role as a feeding therapist.

But one of the most important things this work has taught me is that feeding therapy cannot happen in isolation.

Feeding is one of the most complex things the human body does. It brings together the brain, nervous system, sensory system, oral-motor skills, swallowing, breathing, digestion, appetite, development, past experiences, emotions, relationships, and so much more.

That complexity requires us to look beyond the food in front of the child.

Sometimes my role is to identify what may be getting in the way.

Sometimes it’s recognizing a red flag and saying, “I think we need another specialist involved.”

Sometimes it’s helping connect the pieces between a child’s medical history, development, feeding skills, and what the family is experiencing at home.

And always, it means working alongside caregivers.

Parents aren’t just there to “carry over” what happens in therapy. They are an essential part of the feeding team. They know their child in ways I never could from a therapy session alone.

My job isn’t to have every answer.

It’s to understand feeding deeply enough to ask the right questions, recognize when something needs further investigation, collaborate with the right people, and help caregivers better understand and support their child.

Last night The Lanby held an event to welcome Dr. Nelli Gluzman in her new role as head of the new pediatric department....
10/02/2026

Last night The Lanby held an event to welcome Dr. Nelli Gluzman in her new role as head of the new pediatric department. The room was filled with specialists and healthcare providers with the shared mission to change the healthcare industry and provide quality care for children and their families. It was humbling and inspiring to say the least!

It was truly an honor to meet Dr. Gluzman in person after referring families to her for the past 5+ years from her practice at Blossom Pediatrics.

When I started my own private practice I knew I needed a doctor who would look more deepely into a child’s health and truly understand the root cause of their symptoms - not just put a bandaid over it. Because no matter how much we try to improve a child’s relationship with food, if eating causes pain or discomfort, progress will be very difficult to achieve.

Cheers to this new chapter in your life and career. The community is so lucky to have you!

09/29/2026

More than 1 in 37 children under the age of 5 in the U.S. have a clinically significant pediatric feeding disorder (PFD) each year — and that number climbs to more than 1 in 5 among children with a chronic health condition.

Selective eating isn’t always just a preference. For some kids, medical factors — things like reflux, constipation, or food allergies — can play a real role in why eating feels hard.

That’s why understanding a child’s full medical history matters: it helps us see how those factors might be impacting feeding, and connect families with the right providers to build a team around that child.

Kovacic K, Rein LE, Szabo A, et al. Pediatric Feeding Disorder: A Nationwide Prevalence Study. J Pediatr. 2021;228:126–131.e3.

09/27/2026

A child can refuse a food even after the original discomfort is gone. There may be a biological reason why.

It’s called conditioned taste aversion.

Conditioned taste aversion is a learned protective response in which the brain associates a food, taste, or eating experience with feeling sick or physically uncomfortable and becomes motivated to avoid it in the future.

For a child, that association may develop around experiences such as nausea, vomiting, reflux, abdominal pain, bloating, uncomfortable fullness, irritation, or other feeding-related discomfort.

The important part? The brain can remember the association after the original problem has improved.

From the child’s perspective, avoiding that food can make sense:
“I ate this → my body felt bad → I don’t want to eat this again.”

This is one reason we need to be careful about assuming that food refusal is simply behavioral—or that a child just needs more pressure to “take a bite.”

If their body has learned that eating feels unsafe or uncomfortable, pushing harder may strengthen the very avoidance we’re trying to reduce.

Instead, we need to get curious about why eating feels difficult, consider potential medical and gastrointestinal contributors, and help rebuild positive, safe experiences with food.

09/22/2026

Before we ask, “How do we get this child to eat?” sometimes we need to ask a different question:

Does eating actually feel good for this child?

If eating has been associated with pain, discomfort, pressure, or fear, exploring a new food may feel like a much bigger ask.
Before focusing on the behavior, look underneath it.

What might your child’s body be communicating?

Because sometimes food refusal isn’t about the food at all. 🤍

🎥 I’m breaking this down in my newest YouTube video: Medical Reasons That Can Cause Picky Eating in Children.

It’s filled with lots of research!

Link in Bio!

09/17/2026

Kids Feeding Wellness isn’t just about getting children to eat more foods.
It’s about helping children build a relationship with food that supports nourishment, connection, communication, and confidence.

Feeding wellness can look like a child learning to:
• recognize and respond to hunger and fullness
• communicate what their body is telling them
• say “no” or “I’m not ready” when a food feels difficult
• explore a food without the expectation that they have to eat it
• gradually develop the feeding skills and confidence they need
• experience more joy and connection around shared meals

And for parents, feeding wellness can mean moving from:

“I don’t know what else to do.”

to

“I understand my child, and I know how to support them.”

Because progress isn’t only measured by the number of foods a child eats. Progress isn’t only measure by how much a child eats but by the skills, trust, communication, and confidence they build along the way.

09/16/2026

“Ew, that smells.” If food smells set your child off, this one’s for you.

For some cautious eaters, smell isn’t a small thing. Sensory differences can make certain food smells feel genuinely intense — strong enough that a child gags, leaves the table, or refuses to come to dinner at all.

So families adapt. Serve them separately. Stop cooking fish. And in the moment, that works — it lowers everyone’s stress.
The part that’s harder to see is what happens over time. When the adaptation becomes the only option, avoidance can quietly grow, and participation gets harder rather than easier.

The goal isn’t to make your child push through discomfort. It’s to give them tools so they have a choice.
A few things to try 👇

1. Lower the intensity. Serve strong-smelling foods cooler, or place them farther down the table.

2. Give them a scent they like. One of my favorites — spray a stuffed animal with a preferred scent. Peppermint and rosemary are mine.

3. Prepare them ahead. “Tonight we’re having fish. You don’t have to eat it, but you can use your strategies if the smell gets strong.”

4. Teach them about olfactory adaptation. Smells fade the longer you’re around them. Kids find this genuinely reassuring — it means the hard part doesn’t last.

5. Name the effort, not the eating. “I know that smell wasn’t your favorite, but you stayed with us, and I loved your company.”

Participation without pressure. That’s the whole goal.

09/15/2026

ARFID goals for SLPs — three you can actually write.

ARFID is complex and interdisciplinary. You’re not responsible for treating every part of it. But there is a clear lane that belongs to us: communication, oral skills, and social participation.

1. Self-advocacy. For a lot of these kids, food isn’t just food — it’s a social situation they’d rather skip. Give them language that lets them stay in the room: “I’m not ready to try that, but thank you for offering.” Most children won’t come up with that on the spot, so we practice it until it’s automatic. It’s a way to say no that doesn’t cost them the interaction.

2. Oral skills across textures. Look past how many foods a child eats and look at what those foods demand. Raw fruits and vegetables, tougher meats, and mixed textures require completely different chewing mechanics than crackers and bread. When oral feeding is medically safe, breaking those skills down is squarely our work — and it’s what makes school lunch, restaurants and birthday parties possible.

3. Sensory food vocabulary. Appearance, texture, smell, temperature, sound. Describing a food does more than build vocabulary — it shifts a child from reacting to noticing. That’s where curiosity starts, and curiosity is the opposite of fear.

Want the deeper dive, plus additional goal areas with measurable criteria?

Comment GOALS and I’ll send it to you.

I’m Argie — SLP and pediatric feeding specialist in New York. I also mentor clinicians in pediatric feeding. 🤍

09/15/2026

Mealtime is about so much more than picky eating.

Looking back, I realize how much children actually learn by simply sitting around a table with the people they love. We don’t just learn about food. We learn our culture, our traditions, our manners, our relationships, how to hold a conversation — even our identity.

So when feeding becomes stressful, we’re not only talking about whether a child ate their broccoli. There’s so much more happening around that table.

If mealtimes in your home feel tense right now, that stress is worth paying attention to — not because you’re doing something wrong, but because the table is doing a lot of quiet work for your child, and it’s hard to do that work under pressure.

As a pediatric feeding therapist, this is the part of family mealtimes I wish more parents heard about: connection comes before consumption. A calm table supports a child’s relationship with food long before it changes what’s on the plate.

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