To think she’s just lucky her kids aren’t fussy and not to do with parenting

I don't agree with your friend.

For years we tried to get our eldest to eat our food. We thought he'd eat something if he got hungry enough. He didn't. He was very slight and slim. So after years of trying we just decided that he needs to get eating and we gave into him.

My youngest started off being an amazing eater and he only had real food. I literally never did pouches / baby food.

Overnight he became an extremely fussy eater and it stuck - now we give in to him too because I just want my kids to eat calories and grow.

I prepare multiple different food every night to cater which is the opposite of what I wanted to do and often think a few decades ago, how did families manage it or have we as a nation bred fussy eaters over the generations?

I’m Irish and was made eat whatever was on my plate whether I liked it or not. Now I’d eat anything.

Fussy eaters do exist in France as when dd did a French exchange one of the French boys wouldn't eat any vegetables, including onions, or tomatoes. It was challenging for the host parents

Oh sorry I wasn’t suggesting the stands were in Britain - just that migrants bringing new cuisines into a country adapt it to the local tastes. Its rarely quite the same as they would have in the home country.

So were the burger/kebab simply smaller portions of the adult menu? That I have seen a lot in countries where default for children to eat the same as the adults and I wish it was commoner in the UK.

The UK isn’t unique in having children’s menus which consist almost entirely of something-with-chips but its very far from the norm. Even a willingness to supply two plates with an adult meal would have been useful but unless the restaurant was Italian, Indian or similar you would have thought I was asking them to serve gravel.

Well she's lucky not to have a child with serious food related issues like arfid but otherwise it has a lot to do with parenting. My oldest is fussy, even as a teenager she insists on a separate plate for rice and pasta as she hates them touching other foods but at school she doesn't have that option so does eat the food even when it's touching. So that's down to my parenting, as I let it go (and I'll carry on letting it go so long as she is still eating as its not worth the argument to me) but I was stricter with my youngest from the beginning, and introduced him to a wider range of foods as a baby and he is much less fussy. He is still reluctant to try new foods but I don't give him the option not to try and 99% of the time he likes the new food.

My kids are half Burmese. They have never been bought up to not like food. Obviously they have the occasional thing they don’t like . ie one doesn’t like bamboo the others don’t like Brussels.. but from weaning they have all tried everything. They don’t have allergies and have never eaten crap. Their dad is a chef and culturally food is the centre of life, family and important celebrations. Fussing over food would just not be tolerated. So surprisingly no one in our community has ‘fussy eaters’ so yes I believe it’s got a lot to do with parents who pander to kids ..

The South African one is a burger, which is also on the adult menu. And Turkish is a donor plate, I assume because it's the least spicy of the available options (their adult food is delicious but too spicy for my three year old). And while they may be catering for local tastes I don't live in the UK so they're 100% not catering to British tastes. Meaning children's dishes are not an exclusively British thing.

Re the OP's friend, it most likely is luck as well as parenting. For those who read French, this government website links to a study suggesting that 77% of children aged between 2 and 10 are suspicious of trying new foods and likely to become fussy: https://www.sante.fr/mon-enfant-ne-mange-pas-de-legumes-la-selectivite-alimentaire. So perhaps OP's friend's children are in the 23% who aren't. But she's also probably more or less doing the things the article recommends (which I like and try to do): not just buying the child's preferred foods, not forcing them to eat things, serving the same foods in different ways, modelling enjoyment of a range of foods yourself.

And I think the other aspect of parenting is attitude. I could say (as I did upthread) that my 3yo is a fussy little bastard. I could also say, if I wanted to frame it more positively, that he eats a wide range of different meals, all types of beans, eats really well at every meal, and that would also be true. I think @LightDrizzle's example is really interesting and echoes what we've been thinking recently, which is that we need to avoid talking about DS's eating preferences in front of him, and try to present everything as food he will likely want to eat one day.

I do think that it’s a bit of both.. But one very small example of parental influence.. My mum hated olives and always said how nasty they were.. I never even tried one until I was an adult who had moved out of home and really liked them! So I think we as parents / adults need to be aware of how we speak about food around children and young people.

This! This is the rule in our house (no SN issues so there is no medical reason why they can’t eat anything put in front of them). Once dinner is over, the kitchen is closed until breakfast, no exceptions.

It’s both, I agree, but the ratios will differ in different families. I accept that some children have sensory issues that would have prevailed whatever family they were born into but I also think people are unaware of how much their own preferences and issues around food are transmitted, not just by them but by those around them who know about them.

We were out with adult friends, including a brother and sister who are both fussy but the sister is very restricted to beige foods and pizza. There are an incredible number of things she doesn’t eat. She had her 3 year old daughter with her and I know she is keen for her to eat more widely and she makes an effort not to transmit her own aversions. However it was really interesting because we were all sharing starters and her daughter picked up a calamari ring and was about to eat it, I noticed and said nothing but my husband, and the child’s uncle simultaneously said something along the lines of “Does she know what that is?” - I whispered to my husband “It doesn’t matter”. - he came back with “Well she might not like it!” to which I replied, correctly as it turns out, that she was unlikely to find out now. Sure enough the three year old was now fully alert to the fact that this innocuous looking battered ring (delicious at this restaurant) was in fact a suspect and dangerous food and rejected it. I was shocked at my husband as he wouldn’t have done this with his own daughter or mine, none of our children are picky and were exposed to lots of foods from weaning. In this instance the child’s mum wasn’t the one influencing the child, - she might have done so but she didn’t get chance. It was a clear example of how people react dramatically around food and I bet neither my husband nor the brother, who has worked hard to be less restricted himself, would have thought they’d discourage a child from trying new things but that’s what their actions did.

I know Calamari a la Romana is not a healthy dish but that’s not the point, it’s how people reacted when a child was about to try a new food.

Id say it’s mainly parenting but there’s an element of both. I’ve got 2 kids who will eat most things. The younger is very adventurous and loves cooking. I hate beige food and very very rarely had ready meals etc… always cook from scratch. And this has definitely been passed on to my kids.

I agree its both.
We have on odd idea in The UK generally about childrens food, too often Childrens menus are full of beige crap.
However, we are well travelled and eat everything BUT beige crap and DD was very "fussy", probably ARFID. However, her preferences were not for chips and chicken nuggets and what she did eat was healthy if restricted.
DS ate everything, then got "fussy" and now eats everything again.

It's not true about French children, they are all having these for snacks every day. https://www.frenchclick.co.uk/images/product/medium/982.jpg

Though I will say that they go to nursery very early where it's easier to get babies and toddlers to eat proper food for meals because they're all having it at the same time.

Isn't there a book called something like, "Why French kids will eat anything".(I havent read it, but the book did seem like it was from a very america-centric point of view - an american woman moves to France and 'discovers' this phenomenon).

I asked a French friend about this and, actually, she said kids just eat like mini adults from the get go. And if everyone around you is eating like that, then it's cultural and experiences reinforces it. If no-one having on the go 15 snacks a day from a packet, then the kids don't see that out and about, then expect it.

Oh wait, I found an interview with her:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/karen-le-billion-french-children-eat-anything

I wonder what she thinks of that? I wonder if it's accurate!? 🤔

I am prepared to believe that but they are not unique to the UK. I have seen them even in countries that celebrate their food culture more than ours. We had a lot of family holidays in France when DD was small and there was often a children's menu, which was often just as crap as a children's menu in UK!

Thankfully, DD was largely unfussy and enjoyed eating out with us from an early age so we could usually find her something she could try from the main menu. This did also make me question our assumption that French children will eat anything put in front of them.

When she was about 8/9 we were staying demi-pension in a small French hotel. Every evening there was a set four course meal, the menu posted up outside so we knew what to expect. The lady running the restaurant always asked if we were happy with tonight's set menu and when we said "Yes" would then look at DD and enquire "et la grande fille?" and seemed very approving and a little surprised when she said she wanted that too. Gave the impression that she was used to children asking for something different - and this wasn't a hotel used mainly by British people.

Its both, but largely parents. I don’t say that in judgement as 2 of my 3 were very fussy, and there was more I could have done to prevent it. They largely ate pasta (in a sauce) for years. Getting better as they are late teens now.

I think there is more of an issue at primary age rather than early years. My kids ate extremely well at home and at nursery. Then they went to primary school…. Both had a phase around reception/y1 of being a bit fussier but that was also the period of parties and more junk food. I think it was quite striking that although school menus claim to be healthy there was a big difference between nursery and school meals for me. I’d love to see a higher budget for food in school.

In Italy many of the tourist places have children’s menus, usually just pasta with tomato, something like a mini burger with chips or a “cotoletta” which is a schnitzel.

When DD was tiny I just got given a small plate for her so we could share stuff off our plates, or I got her an antipasto.

there are fussy kids here too, but not beige food fussy, just very Italian tastes. When DD’s friends came over and I had to feed them I invariably made something simple like tomato risotto, or gnocchi, or a pizza. That said I’d serve it with a side of veg like fennel salad or tomato and cucumber and most kids ate that too.

Thankfully not many stayed to eat after play dates, dinner time is later here so by 7 everyone went home and got fed there.

Bit of both, but much more so parenting imo. Food culture gets passed down - kids absorb what they experience in the family home on a daily basis.

You basically did BLW. It's just a fancy name for feed the kids whatever your having. Just cut up into a manner thats appropriate for them to eat.

But they are also catering for the local tastes so if serving SA or Turkish food in a country which expects “childrens menus” they will deliver them, just as they will adapt the food to local tastes. This doesn’t mean they would produce children’s menus in the country of origin.

The contents of British or US Chinese menus are very different from each other as each adapt to local taste and can bear little resemblance to the original regional cuisine.

Possibly. I haven't been to the majority of the world or checked for children's menus in all the places I have been. I'm just saying based on the countries I've lived in it's definitely not just the UK that has children's menus.
There's a food hall in the place I live now with food from all around the world, each stand run by natives of the country in question. The two stands that have a specific children's option are South African and Turkish.

I found the opposite. My first was traditionally weaned as advised by the HV, going strictly through all the stages of puree, lumps etc. All the focus was on her as she was in a chair being fed, rather than at the table when we were eating. There was lots of knocking the spoon away, pushing the bowl away etc.
My other three started weaning sat on a grown ups knee the table and ate bits and bobs from our plates. Weaning started when they were interested in food, once they were regularly eating a decent amount they sat at the table with their own food. Barely any focus on them. There was no ‘power’ because there was no expectation on them to eat, it was more about enjoying the meal time.
They all still went through a fussy phase to some degree at toddler/pre-school age though. We got through it with patience and consistency. Now they all eat a varied diet including foods I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole.

I assume It's countries like Greece, Italy, Turkey that don't have separate children's menus at all?

IME of Italy, touristy places might. Local places won't- the most you'll get is a pizzeria doing baby pizza (any normal pizza on the menu but smaller and a bit cheaper) or a restaurant sees you've got a toddler they might ask you if you want 'pasta al burro' (plain buttered pasta that wouldn't be on the menu otherwise).