True Picky Eaters

I well remember the days of having to sit at the table until I’d eaten my ‘greens’ Mum knew I hated them but dished them up anyway, I kept telling her that if she doesn’t like waste then stop giving them to me.
It was a battle of wills which led one evening to me still at the table on my own until bed time.
I’m nearly 70 and not liking my greens never did me any harm and I never ever forced food onto my children or grandchildren that they didn’t like.
But I still remember the evenings at the table on my own with cold food that I hated.

I was put on a table for fussy eaters at school after throwing up beetroot all over a teacher's skirt. Still hate the stuff and tweed skirts.
So when my own daughter got a bit fussy, I went with the flow.
She wouldn't eat the ends of sausages for example.
We discovered the best way to get her to eat was to let her pick off my plate.

I struggled with meat as a child, but I blamed that on school dinners.
My children ate whatever we had, so I was lucky. I never thought about it until my DD started baby-led weaning, ‘because that way they won’t be picky eaters’. It worked with one DGC, but not with the other, who is still picky now. The least picky has his own problems with food which many will recognise. Nothing touching!
He is the biggest practitioner of deconstructed dishes I’ve met. e.g. Bread-no spread on a plate with whatever I’ve provided for sandwich filling, hot it cold, to be eaten separately. The only change is when it’s a choice of hot sausage or bacon bun from a sandwich shop or nothing. Then he always chooses the bun and eats it.

Who else had school dinners with no choice? Virtually everybody had them. We often moaned, but we ate them, because there was nothing else.
At my first school we were allowed one fad, otherwise you had to eat it.
My ‘fad’ was meat fat, which I still can’t eat - except for very crisped up bacon fat.

When I was about 4 my father tried to trick me into eating it, by hiding some in mashed potato. But I still gagged when it got to the back of my throat, so they stopped trying to get me to eat it.

Cutting the fat off was so automatic, I once found myself cutting it off a slice of ham for a dd of maybe 3.
She said, ‘Can you leave the white edges, Mummy? I like the white edges.’
I never did that again!

Grandson 2 eats a very bland sort of diet. White bread, potato products, chicken nuggets.
We were once in an Italian restaurant, he wouldn't have pizza or pasta, his order, mashed potatoes and chips. They were very good and fulfilled his order.
A few months later he was diagnosed as autistic.
He is another one who doesn't like his food to touch. I give him his baked bean (about the only veg he will eat) in pot on the side.

Three of our four boys would eat anything. Son no 3 would only eat weetabix with milk, apples and fish fingers. I considered that a fairly balanced diet and didn’t worry too much. Now a healthy 40 year old who’ll eat anything at all.

My daughter is in the process of adopting two children. They've been in fostercare for more than 18 months and one of them was a very picky eater to start with, largely because (as my daughter found when she visited their foster home) she'd been living on oven-cooked and fried food. She wouldn't eat anything that wasn't crisp to the point of almost burnt. This has improved and the was eating or tasting almost anything, until her school had a healthy eating week. They appear to have classified all food as good or bad - not OK in moderation - and my GD refused to eat anything "bad" such as cereal or bread. Fortunately this effect has worn off now but I do feel that little thought sent into the school's programme.
I should mention that my GD is very thin and could eat far more calories than she does with no detriment to her health.

I grew up during post war rationing. It was actually a very healthy diet, including lots of home grown veg, and i ate almost everything, except beetroot.
My daughter’s children went to a vegetarian nursery and experienced all sorts of foods. They would eat anything put in front if them. They are teenagers now and have their preferences, but have been easy to feed. So lucky.

I went through a phase as a child of only eating Lyons apricot pies. I loved them. My mum took me to see our doctor and his comment was ' at least she is eating'. I would love to find one of those pies now.

My youngest is an extreme picky eater and now has decided that even the things he usually likes "taste weird" and honestly, it's really stressing me out.

I wonder if he could have had covid and we didn't know and that explains this change.

He would happily just not eat. My days are spent bargaining with him. We can't do x and until you eat something because your body needs fuel.

JenniferEccles

Isn’t the answer to introduce babies to a very wide a range of different food, textures and tastes at the very start of the weaning process, concentrating perhaps more on savoury rather than sweet foods?

Of course children will have likes and dislikes as we all do as adults but I do wonder whether some of these faddy eaters were given a rather limited range of foods as babies.

nope. its not.....and I think calling them "faddy" or "picky" is rather judgemental. There have been two children in my wider family who have had phases of only wanting to eat certain foods....different generations and not closely related. Luckily they both had sensible parents and GP's and the advice was the same, to give them what they would eat and not make a fuss but to make sure that other choices were always available. Both grew into adults who eat "normal" diets. Both have siblings who never had any diet problems and all the children were offered a wide variety of foods from weaning.

It is interesting that a common theme is dairy avoidance. We are not designed to eat dairy and alot of people get sick from eating it. I wonder if, left to their own devices, people would eat what suits their own genetic make up. Part of the problem in some cases is that sugar and fat are very addictive, so kids can get used to those flavours to the exclusion of others.

Witzend

Who else had school dinners with no choice? Virtually everybody had them. We often moaned, but we ate them, because there was nothing else.
At my first school we were allowed one fad, otherwise you had to eat it.
My ‘fad’ was meat fat, which I still can’t eat - except for very crisped up bacon fat.

When I was about 4 my father tried to trick me into eating it, by hiding some in mashed potato. But I still gagged when it got to the back of my throat, so they stopped trying to get me to eat it.

Cutting the fat off was so automatic, I once found myself cutting it off a slice of ham for a dd of maybe 3.
She said, ‘Can you leave the white edges, Mummy? I like the white edges.’
I never did that again!

I didn't eat the school dinners they were horrible, would seriously rather go hungry. The school had a policy of sit till you finish until a girl in my year projective vomitted across the table.

It’s normally something you grow out of. As a child I struggled with certain meat especially beef and poultry, but I was alway given something else as an alternative such as mince with veggies all mushed in. Once I grew up I ate everything, same as my son who would only eat fast foods. More you fuss the worse it gets so just offer healthy alternatives if a child refuses the meal.

One of my younger relatives, now in his late 30's went through a phase at age 2-3 of eating only one particular type of white bread, dairylea spread, and bananas washed down with water or an occasional glass of milk. His mum dispaired as until that point had been quite good at eating, there seemed to be no reason for this sudden change. She was so concerned that she took him to the doctor who checked him over asked her various questions and told her he was fine but if he changed, no energy, lethargic, losing weight then to make another appointment ....... 5-6 months later he was back to eating a normal varied diet and has been fine ever since.

My two grandsons , 7 and 8 are very hearty eaters and eat anything and everything and lots of it, even hot curry so I dont have experience of that . They run it off and both boys are thin as rakes. I am of the opinion that just take the plate away and that a child won't starve themselves but what do I know. No experience of it. Sorry.

Razzy

It is interesting that a common theme is dairy avoidance. We are not designed to eat dairy and alot of people get sick from eating it. I wonder if, left to their own devices, people would eat what suits their own genetic make up. Part of the problem in some cases is that sugar and fat are very addictive, so kids can get used to those flavours to the exclusion of others.

we may not have originally been designed (who designed us?) to eat dairy but we have evolved to do so. people in western cultures who are truly lactose intolerant are a minority, not "lots" and people who are allergic to dairy are in an even smaller minority!

razzmatazz

My two grandsons , 7 and 8 are very hearty eaters and eat anything and everything and lots of it, even hot curry so I dont have experience of that . They run it off and both boys are thin as rakes. I am of the opinion that just take the plate away and that a child won't starve themselves but what do I know. No experience of it. Sorry.

But children absolutely will starve themselves so what is your opinion based on?

out of 3 kids and 4 grandkids I've had 2 that ate well the others a total waste of time cooking for I quickly learnt after multiple hospital appointment with my 1st dd that letting my child eat what she wanted to eat was better than creating a bad food relationship. do started senior school at 3 stone 4 because she just refused anything other than chicken, we didn't have maccies in them days so wasn't a case of I was feeding her junk food , she's 35 now eats anything snd everything and normal weight she just needed time to get used to eating foods at her own pace , so never made a big deal out of food with the others

After baby led weaning my gs has a limited veggie diet but is always wanting sweets and snacks (as presumably he is still hungry!) In my opinion he eats far too much sugar and processed food. I worry that when he is older, he will have rotten teeth and be diabetic or have other eating issues sometimes it's hard being a granny.
His mum ate most things and my other child had one or 2 fads but still ate a wide range - their weaning was on packets and jars of commercially produced babyfood.

I agree. A lot of virtue signalling goes on around food, doesn't it? I enjoy eating liver, oysters and actually almost anything but my children ( 31 and 21) both believe that we will all have to be vegan in the future. I really hope not!!!

Children exert their independence, or try to, at various times all through their childhood.

This is normal behaviour. How else could they possibly learn about social boundaries, right and wrong, what foods they like or dislike?

The ways in which they do this are not always easy for the grown-ups reponsible for bringing them up or teaching them.

With small children I have always found that making as little fuss as possible usually solves the problem quickly.

Remember the child who had heard a rude word? The first time we heard her say it, we said, "That's not a nice word, please don't use it." After that we ignored it as much as possible, didn't we?

It is no-one's fault that a child refuses to eat certain things.

I would worry if a child only would eat one thing for more than a day or so, but it seems that many of those who do so, come to no harm.

The child who ate her toast, after refusing it, when sent out to give it to the birds in the garden is a marvellous illustration of this sort of thing being a bid for independence.

Mummy wisely did not insist that the toast was eaten, so the child went out, offered the birds it, and when they didn't want it, ate it herself. Probably coninced her mummy couldn't see, hear or guess what she was doing.

Our great grandson is almost 4 and is a picky eater but with effort and subterfuge we introduce him to different things. He wont eat fruit but will happily drink fruit smoothies if you let him help make them. He avoids vegetables so we incorporate them into pasta sauces. His issue is texture its not him being stubborn or trying to push anyones buttons it is a response he has to the texture of food.

My grandson at less than 2 decided he did not like milk. He just would not drink it anymore. His doctor parents gave in and did not bother to offer him milk. After about 2 years he tripped over a tree root and broke his leg. An xray established that he was badly lacking calcium. At last his parents decided to do something about it and they locked him in his room with a glass of milk and told him he would not be let out until he had drunk it. After that he started drinking milk quite happily and is now 24 years old and doing well.

My 9 years old DGD will only eat a very limited diet, consisting mainly of homemade pork chilli (minus beans) or chicken curry, rice, Nutella on unbuttered bread, pasta with one brand of spaghetti sauce (no cheese) and (reluctantly) beans on toast. She is very specific about these dishes and won't eat them if they vary from the norm, e.g if the bread or toast is buttered.

She's very thin and her mum gives her multivitamins because she won't eat any fruit, vegetables, eggs, bread, fish, cereal, etc. She is a sweet girl, not at all spoilt and isn't trying to be difficult. She is just very odd about the smell and texture of food as well as the taste, and can't bear to eat most of the things she has been offered.

Her 11 year old sister will try any food and usually likes it, and has a hearty appetite. Both were weaned in the same way, on a wide range of foods. I agree that it's nonsense to say that picky eaters will eat if they're hungry. I think that DGD would rather starve than eat food that she hates, and that unfortunately is most things.