When Rita Bhan (name changed), a 35-year-old mother, noticed her daughter suddenly eating two eggs every morning, she initially felt relieved. Her 12-year-old had always disliked eggs. She didn’t want them boiled, or scrambled, or even in an omelette.
“Getting her to eat anything protein-rich was always a struggle,” she tells AIM.
So when her daughter began asking for eggs every day, Rita assumed it was simply a change in taste. But after a few days, the behaviour started to feel unusual. She recalls that her daughter became very particular about food. “She would say things like, ‘I need more protein’ or ‘This has enough protein for me.’ The language itself felt odd.”
One evening, Bhan finally asked where this sudden focus on nutrition was coming from. Her daughter hesitated before admitting that children at school had been teasing her for being “too skinny” and “weak”. Feeling insecure about her body, she turned to Google Gemini for advice on how to gain weight and strength.
“The chatbot created a full meal plan for her. It recommended high-protein foods, including eggs, every day. So she forced herself to eat them even though she didn’t actually like them. What unsettled was not the eggs themselves, but the fact that my daughter had quietly begun taking health and body advice from an AI chatbot without speaking to her parents first,” she notes.
As conversational AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini increasingly find younger users, experts say children are beginning to rely on them not only for information, but also for reassurance, validation, and lifestyle guidance during emotionally vulnerable moments.
A 2025 study published in the World Journal of Innovation and Modern Technology found that AI-powered nutrition apps are increasingly influencing students' dietary decisions. The study observed that AI-generated recommendations encourage gradual habit formation through personalised meal suggestions, real-time feedback, and behavioural tracking. At the same time, AI-based food tracking can sometimes encourage rigid eating behaviours and food-related stress.
Rise of AI-Guided Eating Habits
Prashanthi Gopalakrishnan, a child nutrition and behavioural coach, says children today are highly conscious of their physical appearance and often turn to AI tools because they struggle to openly discuss their insecurities with parents or peers. “They try to navigate whatever insecurity they have through these platforms,” she adds.
According to Gopalakrishnan, many children interpret AI-generated food suggestions as strict instructions rather than general guidance. This can gradually lead to rigid eating patterns, especially when children begin following dietary advice without understanding their body’s actual nutritional needs.
A teenager focusing excessively on protein intake, for instance, may overlook the importance of carbohydrates, fats, and a balanced diet that is essential during adolescence for healthy growth. “They think if they eat more protein, everything will be fine. But children at that age also need energy, movement, and balanced nutrition because their bodies are constantly changing,” she explains.
Gopalakrishnan also believes the issue reflects a deeper behavioural shift in which children increasingly seek external validation for their personal choices, including food choices.
“What children lack is informed decision-making. They may think they are becoming healthier, but sometimes they are simply becoming more anxious about food. A healthy relationship with food should come from understanding one’s own body, not from constantly seeking approval outside,” she asserts.
Beyond Food: AI and Emotional Dependence
Nethra Parthiban, a psychologist and behavioural researcher working at the Orange International Preschool in Bengaluru, believes the issue extends far beyond nutrition and reflects a larger dependence on instant digital responses. “Even adults are beginning to replace thinking with AI. For children, the impact can be much stronger because they are still developing independent thinking skills.”
Parthiban, who works with children aged between zero and six, says many younger children are already interacting with AI systems through voice searches, recommendation tools, and conversational features embedded across apps and devices. Since these systems provide immediate and highly simplified answers, children may struggle to distinguish generated responses from verified information.
“AI is designed to quickly give answers, but children may not yet have the ability to question whether those answers are reliable,” she notes.
According to her, constant exposure to highly stimulating digital environments is also reducing attention spans and affecting children's creativity. “We are becoming uncomfortable with boredom. But boredom is important because that is where creativity develops.”
She also points to a growing tendency among parents to resort to screens and devices to immediately calm distressed children, which may contribute to emotional dependence on technology from an early age.
Are AI Platforms Prepared?
The growing use of conversational AI among younger audiences also raises questions about whether technology companies are prepared to handle child safety concerns.
Earlier this year, OpenAI rolled out an age prediction model for ChatGPT consumer plans to help it identify accounts belonging to users under 18. The model relies on a combination of account-level signals and behavioural signals. Meanwhile, Character.ai (or C.ai), a chatbot which primarily targets young adults and boasts over 20 million monthly active users, announced in late 2025 that it would no longer allow under-18s to engage in chats and create character profiles.
However, conversational agentic AI platform CoRover.ai’s founder Ankush Sabharwal agrees that many AI systems currently do not actively identify whether children are using them. “We should have safeguards, but many systems still assume adults are the intended users,” he notes.
Sabharwal notes that some child-focused AI products are beginning to monitor indicators linked to bullying, anxiety, or emotional distress. However, broader safeguards across mainstream conversational AI platforms remain limited.
As AI tools become increasingly integrated into everyday life, companies may eventually need stronger age-sensitive moderation systems and clearer behavioural safeguards.
Growing Shift in Childhood Behaviour
Experts argue that the challenge now is not simply preventing children from accessing AI, but teaching them to engage with it critically.
For Gopalakrishnan, that begins with stronger communication between parents and children. “If children trust AI more than their parents for deeply personal questions, then parents need to understand why those conversations are not happening at home,” she says.
Parthibhan similarly believes children should first develop emotional awareness, creativity, and rational thinking before becoming heavily dependent on AI-driven systems. She adds that technology is important because children are growing up in a digital world, but they also need to know how to use it in a healthy and balanced way.
At the same time, both experts warn that the conversation around AI and children cannot remain limited to screen-time debates alone. As AI systems become more conversational, emotionally responsive, and deeply embedded into digital platforms, they are also beginning to influence how children perceive food, body image, self-worth, and emotional validation.
Unlike traditional internet searches, conversational AI interacts in a manner that feels personalised and immediate. For children navigating insecurities, loneliness or peer pressure, that interaction can become deeply influential, particularly when adult guidance is absent.
Your reaction