When picky becomes something else
Most fussy eating is ordinary. It peaks somewhere around two or three, it is tedious rather than dangerous, and it loosens on its own over a few years. That is the situation this product was built for.
Some of it is not that. The difference is not how annoying mealtimes are — it is whether the child is safe, fed and growing. Below is what tends to move a clinician from "wait it out" to "let's look at this properly".
None of it is a diagnosis. You cannot make one at home, and neither can we. Treat the list as reasons to book an appointment, not as a verdict.
Signs worth an appointment
The list of accepted foods is shrinking rather than slowly growing. Ordinary fussiness plateaus and then eases. A list that gets shorter month after month is going the other way.
Whole categories are gone. No fruit at all, no vegetables at all, no protein at all — not "hates broccoli" but "nothing from that group crosses the plate".
Weight or growth has stalled, or the child is losing weight. This one goes above everything else on this page. Ask about it directly, and soon.
Eating hurts, or looks frightening to watch. Gagging, choking, vomiting at a texture, coughing during meals, or pain reported around swallowing.
The reaction is panic, not preference. A fussy child says no. A frightened child cannot be in the room, cries at the sight of a plate, or becomes distressed in a way that clearly outlasts the meal.
It started suddenly. A child who ate broadly and stopped — especially after choking, illness, or a frightening meal — is a different situation from one who never ate broadly.
Meals need a supplement or a formula to cover what the day is missing.
Family life is arranged around it. No eating out, no visiting, no nursery lunches, separate meals cooked every night for years.
Who to ask
Start with the paediatrician or GP; that is the door to everything else. Depending on what they find, that may lead to a dietitian, a speech and language therapist (they handle swallowing and texture), or a feeding specialist.
If someone tells you it is a phase without weighing the child or asking what a week of meals actually looks like, it is reasonable to ask again.
About the word ARFID
You will meet it if you search. It names a pattern where restricted eating is severe enough to affect health, growth or daily life, and where it is not explained by body image.
Knowing the word helps you ask a clearer question. It does not let you apply it — not to your child, and not from a website. That is a clinician's job, and it takes more than a list.
What we are not
If several of the signs above describe your child, Taste a Day is not what you need first. It is a game and a habit tracker: it makes food ordinary by showing it often and asking nothing. That is useful for the tedious version of fussy eating and beside the point for a child who is losing weight.
We do not diagnose, we do not treat, and we do not want to be the reason an appointment got postponed by six months.
Come back to us afterwards if it is still useful. We will be here, and we will still be a game.