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

Here you can buy thin slices of chocolate specifically for putting on bread.

I remember visiting a pen friend in the Netherlands & having chocolate vermicelli on bread for breakfast!

Its 20% luck and 80% parenting, unless the child has sensory issues from special needs

I think it’s both. I’m not talking about ARFID type medical reasons.

Some parents don’t eat very healthily so it’s no surprise when their kids follow their lead and do the same. Unhealthy food tends to be addictive and high in salt/sugar so the kids crave it too. I’m a single parent and when my kids went through fussy phases I often ended up eating “fussily “ too because I cba to cook extra veg for one person.

I think that some cultures don’t do “need something in their stomachs before bed” so when kids won’t eat dinner, breakfast is their next meal or they eat reheated dinner in order to learn their lesson. They also don’t treat kids who eat out of the narrow cultural “norm” as strange
The eating out culture for kids is geared towards fussy eaters eg the common menu item of nuggets and chips I liked eating at Pizza Express because it was smaller portions of adult food and serving the pizza last meant that my kids ate some of the crudités.

If it was parenting then I would expect to see my kids dislike the same foods at the same time but that wasn’t my experience. For example my dd went through a period of complaining that everything was peppery and another when she wanted no sauces on her rice or pasta which are phases that her brothers didn’t go through.

I have a kid with ARFID and I still think a bit of both luck and parenting when it comes to food but you can still do all the right things and be unlucky. I also agree with PP who said about fussiness could be in how things could be eaten only in a particular way like my DC will eat an apple but only if I cut it up in a certain way

It's a mix.

Some children are more fussy than others. There is the extreme end which is often more sensory than taste and often wrapped around the predictability of food (hence tending to favour reliable, bland "beige" food) and often co-morbid with disabilities and neuro divergence. No amount of adventurous parenting is going to override that.

But in mainstream parenting, the greater the range of foods a child experiences, the better the odds of a child liking a balanced range of foods to make up a healthier diet.

I was a "fussy" child... the actual issue was that I didn't like "traditional" overcooked British vegetables. As an adult, I experimented and found I favour Mediterranean vegetables, and spices from international cusine. It's much easier to eat a healthy range of foods when not restricted to bland, poorly cooked foods. I've been happy to try new foods through life and some things I've adusted to with age which is common.

With my own children, I did "baby-led weaning" and mainly gave them similar foods to us. Even when DS1 had multiple allergies, it was still usually easier to adapt our diet, or customise something I was making for us. He does have some sensory quirks to his preferences (e.g. can not cope with the concept of rasins in foods- surprisingly awkward) but having had a broad diet as a younger child, he still eats a healthy, functional range of foods around things that he can not stand at all.

I definitely think it comes down to cultural parenting. In a lot of cultures, babies and kids are not fed rubbish like pouches, baby biscuits and other shitty processed food. They eat the same as everyone else, which is usually fresh food, and a great variety of it. British cuisine is not exactly known for revolving around lots of vegetables, but Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines are. Kids from these regions grow up used to lots of different eating salads, salads as sides for every meal, cooking with whole foods, etc.

Also, people tend to prefer the kind of food they grew up eating, which is probably why your kids won't eat the same as your friend's Middle Eastern / French kids happily do.

This. I have been a nursery teacher in a multicultural school with lots of SEN children and the lunches they had were so diverse and healthy it was so interesting to see what they were eating.

It's definitely both

What sort of stuff does she serve that yours wouldn't eat?

Mine used to eat the same as us & a milder version if spicy.

I remember being at a friend's house & her mum was there & the mum was amazed that my 3yr old was eating tomatoes & didn't want sugar on strawberries!

I think it’s a bit of both

I I have a very unfussy 18 year old. We all eat together and We only cook one meal. She’s been exposed to lots of different foods as my DH and I love food and are always trying new cuisines.
Holidays are all about the food and finding great restaurants.
The only thing she doesn’t eat is fish and seafood and that’s because she has an intolerance and is sick and has stomach ache after eating. But she always says how much she wishes she could enjoy fish and seafood as much as us.

Spanish mum and grew up in Spain. Allergies aside, you ate what was put in front of you or you starved 😂. Friends parents were the same

I think both of these comments are spot on.

When our eldest was a baby who was weaned on vegetable curries and home made veg-based snacks, I was quite shocked at how much chocolate and biscuits our French in-laws gave their kids for their afternoon snack 😂I was also introduced to the concept of a "chocolate sandwich" on a French exchange as a teenager (literally chunks of chocolate in a folded slice of bread), which I have since learnt is a common snack in France. Same in Spain, chorizo sandwiches or nutella sandwiches are considered perfectly nutritious after-school snacks.

But yeah, now I've got quite a fussy 5 year-old, who rejects most of the lovely foods she used to eat, and an EXTREMELY fussy 2 year old, who eats about 5 dinner foods and 3 lunch-foods, the health visitor is worried because she's dropped two percentiles in weight, but most people think I'm exaggerating and tell me how lucky I am because two of her favourite foods are spinach and broccoli, and one of the 5 dinners she eats is a (very specific, made by me) curry 😅

I think it is a bit of both.

I have 2 unfussy daughters - well, one is now vegetarian so not actually sure if her lifestyle choice counts as unfussy... but I'm going with yes.

We all ate the same stuff at the same time at the table. I don't think it was anything more than that, alongside the general good luck of having fairly biddable kids.

I've got one who is super fussy (still at 20) and another who will eat anything and everything (17). Both raised the same. Both like this from birth (even breastfeeding/formula/weaning stages).

I don't think all 4 kids can just be luck. And generally, British diets aren't the best tbh.

I think this is spot on. My 3yo is a fussy little bastard, but he does eat many things that other fussy children might reject, e.g. brown rice, most types of beans. We're avoiding making a big deal out of this - we weaned him on normal food and he ate all of it until about 2, which is a totally normal age for fussiness to kick in, so hopefully he'll emerge from this (long, tedious) phase eventually and start eating more variety again.

I have always been a bit sceptical about the claim that French people feed their children much better than we do - the 'gouter' (kiddy snack) section of the supermarket is basically 100% chocolate-filled biscuits, and there are plenty of French-style kids' menus that are pretty much identical to UK ones except that their burger is probably cooked rare, and they'll get some green beans on the side. But one thing I think there probably is more of is family-style meals where children see everyone eating the same things, and get to help themselves to what they want. So the fussier ones will probably fill up on bread, and get round to trying more things in their own time.

People in this country feed their kids rubbish and wonder why they're fussy. In addition, they're far too quick to pander to their children's complaints.

I adopted my own parents' approach. If I think they're being fussy just because they want something else, we have a 'don't eat it and it goes in the bin without replacement' rule. I've only had to do this a couple of times, and guess what? They'll more or less eat anything. From the age of around 8 or so, I asked them to list specific meals and foods they like and incorporate these into the weekly menu, as long as they were sensible and decent meals. Exposure to lots of different foods also helps.

It's pretty much down to parenting (SEN aside).

When our DDs were tiny I would only ever prepare one meal, if they didn't eat it then they would go hungry until the next meal, and so on. I also didn't provide snacks between meals much either. I was heavily influenced by my cousin (married to a French DH) who had her DCs at the same time as me, and fed them the French way.

DH loves all spicy foods so they were introduced to hot curries from a young age, too. I still remember the looks of amazement when we took our DDs to Rick Stein's in Padstow and they both scarfed down a huge bowl of moules marinere each, when they were 5&6.

As with most things regarding children, you need to play the long game. Pandering to them, in the moment, just makes everything that bit harder in the long run.

i think the different parenting definitely has an impact, I’m saying that as a parent with 2 extremely fussy children who have horribly beige unhealthy diets.

Many other cultures expose children to a variety of foods from very early ages resulting in children having a wider range in food options. Also meal times in many other cultures including French and Middle Easten prioritise family time at meal times. I think in English culture it’s far more acceptable to give beige ultra processed food and just except fussy eating as well as children not eating with parents.

I am saying all this, as I say with 2 extremely fussy eaters and being a fussy eater myself, especially as a child, but all I was fed was boiled to death bland food as a child, not processed but very little variety, meat and 2 veg meals. My third child I gave so much variety to from a very early age, they will eat almost anything now. It may be a fluke but I wish I’d done the same with my oldest.

I think she’s mostly right actually, and I am British. I think yes some kids are more fussy and obviously some have sensory issues but when I hear someone say their child will eat no fruit or no vegetables I just think that’s ridiculous.
My 2 DC have never been fussy, there are things they don’t like but on the whole they like a wide range of food try new things

I think it is parenting. I am one of them. We have two children, picky in different ways. It's an ongoing struggle. We are taking two steps forward and two steps back at the moment by getting Gusto meals. They each pick and cook one meal a week. Some amazing changes and additions to thier diets but probably at the cost of number of veg portions a day as these were previously individually catered for. I think the individual catering is where i went wrong. It was well intentioned but I think at some point it went from not wanting to force them to eat something they didn't like, to them refusing foods they didn't prefer.

Yes, YABU. It’s mostly parenting.

I used to think along the same lines (but not completely) as your friend. My eldest had likes and dislikes, but would eat almost anything - all meat, all fish, all fruit, not as many veg, all types of cuisine, spicy/sweet/sour.

And then I had my youngest. When weaned, would eat almost everything, but had definitely dislikes compared to my eldest. And then slowly got more and more fussy and then diagnosed with ARFID. And is now incredibly limited.

Both were brought up in the same culture, household, nuclear and wider family etc. I cook almost everything fro
scratch. It’s luck for us.

I think parenting/culture plays a large part. I nearly always notice when I watch healthy eating/Eat Well for Less style TV programmes that the children from the families with ethnic backgrounds seem much more receptive to eating fish or vegetables or whatever home-cooked recipes the presenters get the parents to cook, vs the children of the white British families on these shows who wrinkle up their noses and go urrgh just at the thought of trying a piece of broccoli (as do their parents a lot of the time). I have south east Asian heritage and mealtimes were always a family occasion. We did sometimes get given foods like Birds Eye beefburgers (no bun) or fish fingers but they'd be served with mash and veg and my parents would be eating the same thing!

I think it’s both too - and I say that as someone with disordered eating as a result of autism who is incredibly sympathetic to parents who struggle to feed their children.

Yes, some children have genuine problems with food and I wouldn’t judge a parent who was struggling to get healthy food (or any food) into their child - but there’s no doubt that some children are fussy because of what they’re fed and how they’re parented as well.