Pediatric Eating Assessment Scale (PediEAT)
What It Measures
The PediEAT asks a parent to describe what actually happens when their child eats. Not whether the child is a picky eater in the abstract, but how often specific things occur — gagging, coughing, refusing to come to the table, holding food in the mouth, eating only a narrow range of foods.
Seventy-eight items sort into four areas. Physiologic symptoms covers the body's responses: gagging, choking, vomiting, congestion. Problematic mealtime behaviors covers refusal, distress, and disruption. Selective and restrictive eating covers a narrowing range of accepted foods. Oral processing covers chewing and managing food in the mouth. Each item is rated from never to always, and higher totals mean more symptoms.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Available for non-commercial use in clinical practice, education, and research.
Learn More: Age-based reference values exist (Pados, Thoyre & Park, 2018), derived from 1,110 healthy full-term children across 11 age bands, converting raw totals into percentiles and T-scores. That matters because symptom patterns shift with age: problematic mealtime behaviors peak around 24–30 months, while oral processing difficulties decline steadily.
