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

When my kids were small I was a single mum of five and extremely poor. I mean having to fish down the back of the sofa for fifty pee to put enough fuel in the car to get them to school poor. I was always so glad that none of them were fussy because some of our meal choices were, of necessity, rather strained. They all ate pretty much everything.

Now they are all grown up and buy and cook their own food, they are a lot fussier. Back in the day even my autistic DD would eat most foods - now she only cooks Hello Fresh meals!

the jarred baby food doesnt help - food naturally varies in taste, colour and texture. a carrot you pick and cook one week will taste slightly different to a carrot you cook the following week from a different farm. Baby food however is a million carrots all cooked together giving a very uniform taste so babies dont get used to the subtle differences in taste.

I think in the UK there is a lot more focus on feeding babies 'proper baby food' from a jar/pouch. I remember my mum being horrified I wasnt feeding jarred food. Also there is a trend to feed children a different meal from the adults.

I had a little hand held grinder that I used to give our kids food. I would just grind up a couple of spoons of our meal in that and serve it to them. Sometime it would need a little adaption like if we were having thai green curry I would take theirs out before I added too much spice and then water theirs down with more rice and coconut milk etc.
We always ate and sat as a family and food was often served in the middle of the table so everyone could help themselves.

I think that way of eating is more common in other cultures where kids eat the same as the adults at the same time so does have an impact on what kids will tolerate. If they are exposed to a wide variety of foods early on that they see the adults eating they are more likely to eat it.

Now of course my kids have the odd thing they hate eg DS1 hates brocooli and DD does not like mashed potato at all since school dinner mash put her off.

Of course there are some children with additional needs that will have aversion to texture food but I can't believe it is as common as people make out

My friend always marvels at how good my children ate but she admits that they never as a family sit down and eat together. She is veggie and the others are not, her partner eats at 11pm cos that is when he gets round to cooking for himself. her son has pasta every night and her daughter might eat what one of the parents are eating or whatever is in the fridge. So they are not exposed to other food, its like food is just a necessary evil to eat inbetween other stuff rather a meal to be savoured and enjoyed with other people.

Broccoli is dinosaur food in our house. My kids love it.

Its probably both
But severe fussy eating is often linked to sen
Some kids i know rejected the free school meals. To be fair there is less choice than when i was a child. To an extent 2 main courses one meat one veggie and you were at onbe ppint supposed to be veggie for that one so... No choice. pre covid there was salad ,jacket potato or sandwich options.
However of those kids some do now have sen asd or adhd.

Surprising numbers of young primary kids here seem to dislike pizza so nothing to eat at a few parties!

I wouldsay if one kiddidnt like mushroom/eggs/brussels etc i would consider that pretty fussy. So its whether thats several kids.

Mone dont like
Dd1 sauces like curry etc, ham, cheese sandwich etc mushrooms, gone off milk, omlette
Dd2 pancakes, crumble, some biscuits. In usa wouldnt eat their bread! And didnt like it in spain either.

Its to do with your taste buds. As some people really taste brussel sprouts etc.
My dp seems unfussy but actually refuses green beans, courguette, swede etc. So basically left with carrots and peas and sweetcorn.

Im fussy. I also dont like some meat like chop or steak it is always chewy, bloody or fatty.

Does the french woman or husband smoke out of interest. The french have very low rates of asd.
My parents are very unfussy (rationing as young kids). But mil wont eat onions, spicy food etc

I wonder why in uk we dont tend to give kids spicy foods?
You need to present the same foods lots of times. However some kids start reducing what they will have. It probably doesnt help that there are so many fussy kids so impacting each other at school etc. Saying eww. Or leaving things

As I said upthread it's a bit of both.

But I have also noticed that my DC went through several fussy eating stages between the ages 2-8.
I think it's very tricky to parent these stages especially when the type of foods the DC wants to eat is readily available. It's easier and cheaper to throw some chicken nuggets & chips into the oven/ airfryer than cooking a meal and throw half the food away. Sticking to your guns and working through the tantrum after a busy day at work isn't fun!
In the end it's about how much value you as a parent put onto the food/ diet you give your children whentheygo through these stages. If you naturally enjoy eating it's easier than if you see food as a fuel to keep you going- these are different outlooks, not a right or wrong thing!

Three kids. Two who will eat anything, one with texture issues so is very fussy. How can that be parenting?

None of my kids were fussy eaters. All ate a wide variety of fruit, vegetables and would try anything. I think a lot is to do with the diet they are socialised into and sitting at table seeing parents and older siblings eating everything. If kids are only ever offered beige food and chips this is what they will learn to like. I don't think my kids were offered a chicken nugget until they were about 3 or 4 and very rarely offered a chip. They were consistently given pasta, rice, couscous, boiled, roast and mashed potatoes potatoes with 3 different fresh vegetables everyday. I can recall at nursery they had a day when they gave all the DC different fruit and vegetables to try. They told me my DC was the only one who had eaten dragon fruit and asparagus and could name them when asked what they were. There is loads of research showing early introduction to lots of different foods makes DC more accepting of a wider palette. I just found it meant I could cook one meal for us all to share rather than cooking different meals for DC, which I know some families do. I didn't have time for that. 2 of my DC had addition needs too.

Yes agree a combination of no Sen or sensory needs and culture / families attitude to food.

im autistic as is my son and my dd has adhd. We all have to some degree or another eating issues. But so does my DD who is NT probably from her environment.

I was never a fussy eater as a child what was given was eaten or dont eat at all.
Lucky if we got anything nice.
But as an adult i will say im a very fussy eater i wont eat just anything or anywhere.
If something dont look right smell right to me i simply wont touch it.
Same goes for street food the person cooking it or making sometimes i look and think nope go elsewhere.
Im ashamed to say i`ve even got stuff from a shop or bakers come outside one bite dont like the taste straight in the bin without any guilt or care of what it cost me.

Automatically, you're cutting down the types of food offered, simply because the parent doesn't like them!

Yup!

When my husband was a kid nothing that his dad didn't like was ever served.

School dinners were a revelation to him!

Parenting absolutely plays a part, and exposing children to a wide range of tastes, flavours & textures from day 1 weaning absolutely helps.

I have always found that if you travel and look for a kids menu in other countries the meals are basically just smaller portions of adult meals, whereas in the UK a kids meal is chicken nuggets/burger/hot dog/fish fingers & chips. Little things like that can make a big difference.

I also think it's a bit of both. I cooked, and still do everything from scratch, all different cuisines and introduced so many different foods from weening.

My best friend did exactly the same, except her 3DC would eat absolutely everything put in front of them and my 2DC wouldn't.

We have the same parenting styles so I can only put it down to luck on her part.

I am pleased though that they are now very adventurous in their eating.

I'm British and my son isn't fussy with food. I find the key is to make sure children are given a broad spectrum of food when they're weaned. Often parents are fussy eaters, and won't cook/buy/offer foods they don't like themselves. Automatically, you're cutting down the types of food offered, simply because the parent doesn't like them! I also think some adults have a narrow outlook with food choices, they've never eaten them, so wouldn't think to offer them to their children. I think sometimes it's learned behaviour. My son eats most things, and is always willing to try new foods. Yes, there are certain foods, he really doesn't like, but overall he's really good.

My culture (white, British) growing up was basic home-cooked meals, at a time when all my mates were getting chips and processed food like ready-made pies in tins and Smash.
That was because my DParents were much older than most of my mates’ parents, and didn’t trust the onslaught of “new” foods, and were also revelling in the fact that rationing had finished 6 years before I arrived, so many foods not available since 1939 were now plentiful and realistically priced.
I did feel as if I was missing out, but gradually came to appreciate food made from scratch, a practice I continued when I moved out.
Although my cooking has altered to include a far greater range of influences, I still try to create every meal from scratch now - and the recent revelations about UPF’s seem to be a reason to continue with this approach.
My DC were also given a huge variety of foods to try from a young age, by simply eating the same as us - and I think that’s the key: once you start kids on “kids food” (the kind that has those addictive additives in them), they don’t want the variety of “adult food” that comes from natural ingredients…

I remember asking mine what they would like for lunch.

Invariably there were no suggestions & when lunch was served it was met with "but we didn't want that"😂

So "what don't you want?" became the question for a while!

It’s definitely true that some people choose to feed their children what they think of as “kids’ food” (chicken nuggets etc) and then complain later on that their children are fussy.
Some children obviously the parents try them on all sorts and for various reasons they will only eat certain foods.

We’ve always, right from the start of weaning, given our DC what we’ve been having for dinner. Luckily they don’t have any additional needs that make food difficult for them, but we consciously chose to not ever give them separate meals because they’re children.

I did, and pretty much still do, exactly this. At 16mo DD was the most amazing eater.

At 16yo she is really fussy. Not in a sensory way or anything, just very particular and very reluctant to try new foods ... it's an ever changing process so how a toddler eats tells you nothing 😆

I think it somewhat parenting but a lot to do with the food culture there.
I have a friend living in France with their spouse and child. It is a homecooked meal and sitting at the table for every meal. They don't eat things like chicken nuggets, pizza, chips etc.

The other thing I notice is the food served in school. The school her child goes to gives out a monthly menu and it is better than many restaurants I have been to. All homecooked with locally sourced ingredients.

It’s both IMO. I grew up in a lower income home with limited nutritious food and I grew up on a crappy diet with awful ideas about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food. All the other kids, and myself, in the bubble I grew up in had very strong opinions on what they’d eat or not, and it was (to a point) catered for. Think: not enough time/money to make 2 meals, or to provide foods ‘for exposure’ so parents just bought the frozen stuff they knew their kids would eat.

I knew I wanted things to be different with DS so I researched a tonne and put in loads of effort to providing wide ranges of food from scratch, and he now eats it all with little fuss. Of course I’m ‘lucky’ in that he doesn’t have any SEN or ARFID which would effect this, but I definitely think there’s been some impact in consistently making healthy-ish decisions with food and trying hard to find the right balance.

I suspect you are more likely to be lucky with your second child if you were lucky with the first - DS2 copies DS1 and wants to eat what he's eating. So he also doesn't want to eat things he sees his older brother rejecting. Grr.

Actually though I'm having quite good results with getting DS1 (who is 3) to eat his broccoli by convincing him this will help DS2 (who is 1) to want to try his.

Bit of both.
My kids (8,5,3) eat anything. They've never been asked or been given choices, this is what we are eating, so eat it.
But it is perfectly normal for kids to only eat what they are familiar with. My nieces and nephews don't like pizza, but tripe is a treat. Expecting kids to eat such a variety of flavours is really quite a modern phenomenon I think. As long as they aren't being raised on beige "kid" food it's fine.

I think she can have been lucky. I have 5 kids, 4 of whom have never been a problem when it comes to food, even the ND ones. And then I have one with ARFID and a severely restricted diet for most of his life. They were all raised the same way with food. He is my middle of 5 and a twin and they were literally fed the same food but from weaning he was always more of an issue.

I will add that I have hosted international teenage students for many years. Japanese eat everything put in front of them and Brazilian are fussy

Everyone has food preferences. But if you don't feed your toddler chicken nuggets and Dino waffles with spaghetti hoops then they won't know they exist, until sometime later in childhood when they've decided that broccoli is probably alright. Then they can eat both if you need to provide a quick meal