To think fussy eaters are unique to developed countries?

[spokette]

My family hail from a poor village in Jamaica and food fussiness is unheard of because children eat what they are given because so many of them may still only have one or two meals a day. That is also the experience of my friends from other developing nations

This food fussiness malarky appears to me to be unique to the developed countries because children have lots of choices plus many of them tend to snack between meals.

My mother, who grew up in Jamaica as one of 10 children with a widowed mother and no social security network and would often only have water to drink as an evening meal cannot comprehend this phenomenon either.

I bet if a lot of the fussy children (I'm referring to those without medical issues) had to regularly go without food like millions of children in the underdeveloped world do so every day, they would soon eat what they were given imo.

Harsh but true.

[Kewcumber]

is there some kind of BOGOF offer on picky eaters threads at the moment?

[madcol]

It may be true but not sure it helps particularly if your fussy eater cannot yet speak or be reasoned with.

[spokette]

I'm genuinely curious. Why is it more spread now than say 40 years ago?

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

It has got to vary IMO.
I've lived in countries which are not considered developed and have come across very fussy eaters. Whilst I have never been to anywhere where extreme starvation was a real possibility, I have lived for a long time in a country where little food was available due to rationing etc and even then kids would give their mothers headaches over how little they would be willing to eat.

[spokette]

more widespread

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

is it more widespread or are more people talking about it?

[Kewcumber]

Ds was in an orphange for first year and had to be virtually forcefed the stuff he didn't like. Mind you they ate the saem thing all teh time - mince potato carrot yoghurt. So it was hardly a varied diet.

Not sure that proved anything.

[coppertop]

You can't make such a massive generalisation based on the experiences of one family. IMHO.

[spokette]

That's interesting Wellies because that is not mine or my family's experience. Maybe we just love our food!

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

thinking about it, my moher often talks about how she or her siblings were still sometimes fussy eaters even though they knew that what they had in front of them was all there was until next pay day.

[ScottishMummy]

so many threads/opinions about what(other people)children eat?why?

you are slated if you buy them fastfood and so called MN Never-never foods

But sneered and called smug/twee if you buy organic/farmers market

[madcol]

My fussy eater will apparently eat anything and everything when I'm not around .

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

my mother I meant, not my moher

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

mince potato carrot yoghurt doesn't sound toooo bad

[spokette]

True Coppertop but I have friends from other developing nations (African and Asian continents)and our views are similar.

[TheFallenMadonna]

Now, spokette, I know you're a scientist and therefore would not make big extrapolations from such very limited data - would you?

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

You want to know my theory? Fussy children fixate on 3 or 4 foods. In poor countries, there are only 3 or 4 (fairly bland too) foods consumed with any regularity anyway, so it's not noticed.

here, where we 'expect' children to eat what we eat, we expect them to accept 2 or 3 hundred items of food, and for some childen they cannot cope, their palette cannot cope, and they just refuse.

[ExterminAitch]

veeeery plausible theory, BGP...

[WelliesAndPyjamas]

like the theory TBFGP
fits with what I am seeing of fussy eaters currently (in a non 'developed' country) - where anything 'outside the box' provokes panic and refusal

[ExterminAitch]

DOH!

[spokette]

FallenMadonna, absolutely not!!

It just appears to me that this issue disproprotinately appears to affect children in developed countries rather than developing ones but without emperical data to substantiate it, I'm basing my surmise on rhetoric!

[ThatBigGermanPrison]

ah well, spokette, my theory explains this beautifully.

[spokette]

BGP, that collates with my theory too. More choice available in developed countries.