Table of contents:
- Definition of ruminated eating disorder
- Symptoms and effects
- What are the risk factors?
- How can ruminant eating disorder be identified?
- What can be done?
The age of children is an important period to prepare adequate nutrition before entering adolescence and adulthood. Nutritional problems in children are usually related to factors of access to food and consumption patterns. However, it turns out that another factor that is directly related to children's nutritional problems is eating disorders. One of them is rumination eating disorder.
Definition of ruminated eating disorder
Ruminance disorder is a disorder characterized by the behavior of the child removing food and chewing the food again after it is swallowed or partially digested. They usually return to chewing and swallowing, but sometimes also regurgitate the food. Rumination behavior can occur while eating food (sucking food in the mouth) or after finishing eating.
Rumination behavior has become an eating disorder that needs attention when children keep repeating this. If this has never happened before and has persisted for at least one month (with a frequency of at least once a day), then it can be categorized as a ruminated eating disorder.
Rumination disorders can get better and go away on their own when the child gets older. But there is still a possibility that rumination disorders occur in adolescents and adults, even though they tend to hide it.
This disorder is generally found in children aged infants to children, but is more likely to occur in children with cognitive impairments.
Symptoms and effects
Regardless of whether the rumination is intentional or not, this eating disorder is related to the work of gastrointestinal functions such as contraction and relaxation of muscles in digesting food.
Children who do rumination can experience a variety of symptoms, including:
- Weight loss
- Experiencing bad breath
- Tooth decay
- Recurrent stomach pain
- Impaired digestion of food
- Lips look dry
- The lip is injured from the bite
If left untreated, rumination eating disorders can also cause more serious problems:
- Malnutrition
- Often experience dehydration and electrolyte disturbances
- Impaired physical growth
- Respiratory tract disorders and infections
- Choking and causing shortness of breath
- Pneumonia
- Dead
Indirectly, the behavior of removing food can also put pressure on the muscles in the body parts, which can trigger aches and pains. This usually occurs in the muscles of the back, around the back of the head, abdominal muscles and mouth muscles.
What are the risk factors?
The main cause why a child can experience this eating disorder is not known, but several things can increase a child's chances of re-eating, including:
- Experiencing stress that triggers the behavior of vomiting food
- Experiencing diseases related to the gastrointestinal tract
- Parenting patterns that tend to neglect children
- Children like to chew food
- Lack of attention so that vomiting food is his way of getting attention.
How can ruminant eating disorder be identified?
Diagnosis needs to be made by health personnel to confirm if a child has a ruminated eating disorder. Quoted from the Medscape page, guide Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) establishes the following criteria for the formulation:
- The behavior has occurred and lasts for at least one month.
- The behavior of removing and chewing food again is not related to gastrointestinal diseases that cause a person to regurgitate food such as stomach acid reflux (GERD) and pyloric stenosis..
- Rumination behavior does not coincide with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating or disorders that restrict certain foods.
- If this behavior occurs as a result of mental health disorders and neurodevelopmental disorders such as intellectual disabilities, the symptoms of ruminated eating disorder must be serious enough to be diagnosed and treated independently.
What can be done?
Children's eating behavior is the main focus in overcoming their eating disorders. Some things that can be done to overcome rumination are:
- Create a fun dining atmosphere for children.
- Improve children's eating habits, especially the position and posture of children while eating and after eating.
- Improve the relationship between mother or caregiver with children, such as giving the attention the child needs
- Reduce distraction while feeding children.
- Divert attention when he looks like he is trying to throw out food, if necessary, give him snacks that have a sour taste when the child wants to vomit food.
In addition to the above efforts, the application of psychiatric therapy is also needed for mothers or caregivers and their families to deal with emotional stress due to children's eating disorders and improve the way they communicate with children.
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