What happened to very fussy eaters in the olden days?

[houseydnc]

Inspired by another thread where the DC Would only eat the following:
Chicken nuggets
Chips
Toast
Chocolate spread sandwiches

What happened to children like this before chicken nuggets, chips and Nutella existed?

I know fussy eating is different to conditions like ARFID and other sensory disorders. I'm not passing judgement, I'm just interested to know.

I wonder what their diet was restricted to? Toast? Or were they forced to eat a wider variety of foods?

This is simply not true! My mum was born during WW2 and knew 3 kids who were fussy eaters - all died by age 9 of malnutrition

Long history of ARFID in my family (including this generation) and not a lot of processed foods. It's been bread, cheese or some kind of meat, and potatoes that have kept generations of 'fussy' eaters going. Actually in generations before that they only ate a limited variety of foods and consistent meals was helpful for ARFID. Yes there would be meals they didn't eat, but its wasn't unusual then to eat a lot of bread, toast, porridge, dumplings, chips or other potatoes. Yes the meat might have been more variable (liver yuck!) but the other foods were much more consistent. And much less herbs and spices.

Of course a lot more kids with feeding issues also wouldn't have made it at all, though

There is research that shows that in developing countries ‘fussy eating’ isn’t as prevalent. It’s generally a new phenomenon. There weren’t snacks, all sorts of sweet fruits, highly addictive foods as alternatives. I say this as a parent with a very restrictive eater, I know where I went wrong when weaning and how we got to this situation!

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/everyday/10014428

https://solidstarts.com/history-of-baby-food/

In pre 20th century times a lot of childhood issues are covered by "failure to thrive".

Basically a lot of young children with additional needs or health issues would die in infancy.

Some of us got our dad's forcing food into our mouths and developed eating disorders 😅

I don't know, but I imagine either hunger or fear forced them into eating what was available, or if they didn't eat it they were smacked or sent to bed hungry. The attitudes towards children then was not like it is now. Parent could force things a lot more and nobody cared about that. It comes across in your OP that perhaps your rationale is - without today's junk food to eat, would we have less picky eaters? I don't think so. I think they were just pressured to submit or went hungry.

Several years ago remember researching my eating habits and what I now know is ARFID I came across the phrase "neo-phobia". Basically the fear of new and unknown foods. If I remember it basically said it was a kind of survival development some children had which stopped them from eating unknown - and potentially poisonous - foods.
The research said it would have stemmed from cave man times when toddlers would start to toddle away from the cave and randomly eat whatever berries, plants etc that were there.
I don't know how true that all is but it's interesting and it makes makes sense in modern terms when people with ARFID have "safe" foods.

I brought up a picky eater.

He also had a wheat intolerance and he weaned at 3 years old from breastmilk.

It was no big deal - I made sure there were things that he at at each meal. I did end up speaking to the Dr's about his restrictions but they were unbothered so I let it drop - very skinny (still) but eats more variety now he's responsible for his own foods.

We've talked about this and it's deff a texture and taste thing for him. He's also ND

80’s child lived on cold spaghetti from a tin and chocolate mousse, the individual pots from the fridge. This was her choice from around 6 months old til after she started school , 🤣🤣

@jannier eggs,cheese, tomatoes,cucumber, after the revolution, salami type things.

I was a fussy 80s kid in a house without processed food. My mum says she always served bread & butter alongside meat & veg so sometimes I'd just eat that. She said she always put normal dinner in front of us and praised us for trying things but didn't make a fuss if we didn't eat it. I have taken this approach with my equally fussy daughter and I like that it doesn't make eating stressful. My OH was forced to sit and eat everything on his plate and he has a very toxic relationship with his parents and food.

There would have only been enough for Sunday tea...half a cucumber 6 tomatoes for a family of 6. 6 apples and bananas a week .....plenty of greens

60s child here from a family that had little spare money. Mum cooked simple nourishing meals but there was no room for fussy eating. Basically it was eat or go hungry.

This thread has reminded me of something else food related from the 70s. I think we were often hungry despite being fed regular meals.

The whole margarine and low fat thing started then. Also, in a large family and on a budget some items were restricted so we fought over crispy bacon rinds at cooked breakfast which was only on Sundays and only a rasher each. If we could get away with it we’d sneak the top of the milk on our cereal during the week. Not shaking the bottle was a cardinal sin!

I think this lack of satiation over many years did lead to some food issues

But you are supposed to be hungry before you eat a meal and in time leading up to it. Many children I think now never feel actual hunger. And that has led to obesity.

This. That's the reality in poor societies.

Also, for a long time it was quite common for large swathes of the population not to have much variety in their diet anyway. There are lots of examples of times and places where some groups would be living off only a few foodstuffs, there'd just not be that much to restrict iyswim. You wouldn't be faced with much in the way of 'new' foods.

Dunno about olden times but in the 80s They stayed at the table whilst their parents yelled at them until they had eaten some of everything. Well at least in my experience. They also hid their packed lunches that they didn’t like and binned them at school or in the bin down the road.

frequently getting into huge amounts of trouble for this as they were very small wore age 2/3 clothing when they were 7/8.

Have you watched any of the back in time ones (working class ones) without fail the kids refused to eat things like kidney, tripe etc and complained that there wasn't enough of the things that they like say bread and jam.

A few days in they were eating everything they were given.

I would eat kidneys and heart (because both are quite soft with no fat). But not other meat.

I was a very fussy eater, luckily itcwas healthy things I'd eat, dry bread, cheese, lettuce, tomato, some fruits, most raw veggies. I wasn't even interested in chocolates, biscuits etc

I'd go all day without eating unless I'd eat bread in morning - it was compulsory hot school dinners, nothing else.

I survived, no health issues. I still prefer these foods over many others, but eat a lot more variety.

We were an average income family - mum, dad, sibling and me. We ate what was put on the table or went without (I'm 70, my sibling is 72). We didn't have a cupboard full of snacks etc and were not allowed to eat between meals, except for fruit. We were each "allowed" one thing we wouldn't eat (mine was cooked onions!!), but my sibling was a very fussy eater and lived on bread, potatoes, meat of any kind as long as it had no fat on it, peas (the only veg he would eat) and any kind of raw fruit (would not eat it cooked).

If mum served up a meal which didn't fall into his preferences, he would eat the bits of it he liked and leave the rest.

It's odd how many people insist fussy eaters didn't exist in the past, in the face of all the people here who can confirm they did, from personal experience.

I knew a woman who grew up in a rural part of Ireland. If she's still alive, she'll be well over 80 now. She told me once she couldn't eat chicken, never had been able to. As her family were farmers or farmworkers, they probably had chicken more often than equally poor families in towns, and it was probably a treat, but she couldn't swallow it because of something about the texture.

Then there were my two male cousins, one on each side of my family - both now in their 60s, both fussy eaters as kids. I'm not sure how widely they eat in adult life as I don't see them often, but they were brought up on exactly the same sort of food as my brother and I were, their mothers (my aunts) were good plain cooks, as our Mum was, and yet they just wouldn't eat most of what my aunts or my grandmothers or my mother cooked.

And finally, having married a man who by his own account was a very fussy eater in childhood (but with some excuse, his mum was a terrible cook) we had one child on the autistic spectrum who would eat more or less anything and one child who is not ND but who had quite restricted eating in childhood (not now - he'll eat most things and is healthy and active, fortunately).

I am so glad now we didn't make a big deal out of our son's eating. I love food and eating and I hate the idea of mealtimes becoming tense and miserable, instead of a happy time when the family come together and chat. I was worried about my son's lack of variety in what he was eating, but forcing myself to look rationally at what he ate, I could see he was actually getting everything he needed and I could see he was in good health and doing very well at school. So we just worked around it and in the fullness of time he started trying new things and before long he was eating virtually anything. If we'd made his eating into a huge deal I suspect it might have led to further problems down the line, as mentioned by many people on this thread, sadly.

It would have been much harder if he'd been eating a seriously restricted diet with no vegetables, or hardly any protein, or other restrictions that might have affected his health.

YYY to all of this.

My mum still remarks on 'rich' food, and digestion has always been a preoccupation of hers. She was in boarding school during WW2, and the fare on offer was definitely a case of slim pickings.