Children who are deemed 'fussy eaters' seem to have no problem hoofing down sugary and fatty foods!

[pingu2209]

I have at least 4 friends whose children are deemed 'fussy eaters'. Whenever they come to play and have a meal with us, the parents/mothers always apologise in advance, during and after at how their children 'eat nothing' and are 'really fussy'.

My house rules are if you don't like something, fine then leave it. However, you don't get a pudding if you don't eat your main meal.

ALL of the so called fussy eaters are given chocolate biscuits or cake or crisps as soon as they get home, then refuse to eat their dinners but their parents allow them a sugary/fatty pudding anyway.

Is the reality that there are no fussy eaters, just parents that let their children develop a taste for junk food and allow them to get away with eating nothing but junk food?

my son is a fussy eater, and he doesn't eat most thing--- including sweets and fatty foods.

Can't speak for anyone else, but according to my long deceased Nan, my dad only ate bread and potatoes during rationing as he was a fussy bugger. Still is now. Freaks out if someone puts even a single pea on his plate.

that's kind of fussy eating though, isn't it, to refuse one kind of food and gulp down another? and it would serve you much better were food in short supply, to have a taste for high fat food, than to eat all your cabbage, so perhaps it is a survival mechanism.

staying with friends, I've noticed also another tendency for 'grazing' or 'three meals a day' people. we are grazers in our family so I'm not that bothered if they finish up all their meals or not as they're getting plenty throughout the day. we stayed with some 'three meal a day' people and it was really hard work - their kids ate all their meals cos there was nothing else on offer the rest of the day - mine just got very very hungry poor things. I couldn't eat like that either, I'd rather have small main meals and quite a few snacks throughout the day personally

DS1 (and now sadly DS2) are like this - fussy eaters but would eat endless biscuits, crackers, cereal. We have to be very strict and not allow any inbetween meal snacks. DD happily eats the healthy foods.

So yes, I agree, some children just prefer snack food and will only cave when very very hungry. Its a balancing act, esp for DS2 as he's only 14 months and pretty tiny. With DS1 (age 5) at the end of a meal I put the food back in the fridge and he knows he can have it cold if he's hungry between meals.

I agree if the parents indulge it then the children learn no point in bothering with the healthy food, but I promise I do try really really hard and its difficult seeing your baby being hungry yet refusing to eat (even when the offering is the healthy food he likes the most), and knowing if you gave cheerios or a bottle of milk he'd wolf it down.

So in summary, some children are fussy eaters and if the parents want them to eat healthy food they have to work very very hard to do so.

I don't get why people bang on about concentration camps,developing nations,Victorian street urchins etc. Why is that relevant? Are we supposed to go around flagellating ourselves for having the audacity to have been born into a developed country in the 20th/21st century? How dare we?

Of course we should from time to time how lucky we are in that respect,and consider the impact our lives have on those less fortunate,but just because others have and do survive without such things as sufficient food, a choice of food,running water,electricity,heating etc,does that mean that we should feel obliged to do the same?

If we follow that line of thinking then the next time my water is turned off, should I tell the water company not to bother turning it back on again and let them know that in future I'll pop down to the nearest river with buckets and fill up there,even if I have to walk for miles because that's what millions of people in developing nations have to do?

And again I'm going to ask those who say that there are no fussy eaters in developed nations,and I'm not referring to children who are literally starving,or that there were none during rationing,how do you know? I can only presume that you've taken surveys as you seem so sure of this.

Surely there's a difference here - children who eat lots of sugary crap and then don't want their dinner = not fussy, just not having their diets managed properly by their parents.

vs

Children who genuinely for whatever reason don't like a type of / many types of food because of its smell, taste, texture, becoming constipated etc. Yes this is fussy, but it's for a reason and making it into a big deal is just going to fuck up their relationship with food.

I was fussy as a child, in particular loathed roast meat (would chew it for ages and then gag on it, lovely) but now love pretty much all food esp meat and v rare steak. ds eats fruit & veg by the bucket load, loves eg spag bol but won't touch ham, chicken, roast meals. Can't say it bothers me - he has a typically "childish" diet including fish fingers, sausages and pesto pasta in as well as all the fruit, veg, cheese, and I know that he is likely to grow into liking other things eventually. Making it into a big deal isn't going to help him like that food any faster. My abiding memories of food from my childhood are the times when I was being made trying to eat something I hated.

My kids are good eaters and dd does have some friends like you describe BUT she also has one friend who genuinely will not eat. She doesn't get hungry. If her mum says to her 'you won't get any chocolate cake if you don't eat your dinner' she will just say 'ok' and run and play - no tantrum or anything - she's not bothered.
A few of us went to the park one time and all the kids were excited about getting ice-cream and she said she wanted one too - we were all surprised because she NEVER asks for food. She got it and took one lick and said she didn't want any more - she was just trying to fit in bless her!
So YANBU to say that SOME parents make a rod for their own back regarding fussy eating but YABU to say that there are no genuinely fussy kids who don't want to eat anything.

Personally I was offered a very limited amount of foodstuffs as a child and not pandered to at all. I eat most things now - and even love things like cabbage and spinach and sprouts which are traditional things NOT to like.

With dd I don't make a big fuss and just keep trying stuff. Omelettes and eggy bread are new things. She doesn't like cheese but will try a tiny bit on pasta. She likes pita bread and tortillas so I am working on getting some fillings into them. Maybe because she has grown up in Belgium she has a terror of cooked mince. I would LOVE it if she would eat bolognaise or shepherds pie.

I was also a fussy eater as a child. V similar to Balloonslayer actually. I couldn't really articlate it at the time but as I have grown up I have realised I like dry foods mostly. Gloopy foods e.g. pastry covered in gravy, make me physically gag. I know that now so I avoid them. To this day I cannot eat a sandwich with mayo in it. It makes me want to heave. Mealtimes were often a battle because I just wanted to get to my fruit or whatever for pudding. If I had been served different food I would probably have eaten much better. but at 5/6 I was more likely to say "don't want it" than "can I have something crunchy instead?" Interestingly, I had no problem with breakfast (dry cereal, no milk) or sandwiches. Just dinner. I now realise that is because it was dinner that tended to be gloopy but at the time I couldn't articulate that!

And I can tell you that if you say to me to eat particular things or no pudding/sweet stuff then I will happily not eat anything. I did that as a child, I do it as an adult. Roughly after a day I lose any hunger pangs and can go a very long time before I will choose to eat. As an adult I know that I will have to force myself to eat anything, even something I really like, when I get like that.
Dd1 ate anything and everything until she had pneumonia badly a couple of years ago, now is quite fussy. Dd2 and ds will eat anything and everything.

My dd (7) has a severe food phobia and like some others here I would be delighted if she ate cakes, biscuits or chocolate. In fact she visibly trembles if you even ask her to hold any of those items.

And I have had to listen to people who have not a clue what we have been through prattle on about fussy eaters and recommending we just don't give her pudding for years now. As if we're bloody idiots. It's been v upsetting to deal with, on top of the heartache we live with due to the food issues themselves and now makes me pretty angry tbh.

My sons eat anything you put in front of them. And we have never had puddings in our house

So there

I agree that children who genuinely have issues with food are in the minority and the majority of 'fussy eaters' have just been pandered to. Both of my boys have been through 'difficult' stages with food but they didn't get offered sweet or unhealthy food as an alternative. Neither of them had chocolate until they were over 2. Regardless of how little they ate for dinner I would not have been happy about them eating a chocolate biscuit because it was 'something'. Rice cakes/fruit/chopped up carrots/cucumber or a bowl of sweetcorn or even a bowl of porridge at bedtime would have been preferable. Tbh I think children are given access to unhealthy food too early and that causes a lot of fussiness. If they don't know what crisps/chocolate/chips/chicken nuggets are then they won't want them as an alternative to a proper meal. Just to reiterate I'm talking about pandered to fussy eaters.

Totally, bubbley.

It's the ones who say, "Oooh, he'll only eat nuggets". Like the kid goes to Asda and does the shopping.

One of my DD's is a fussy eater. She will only eat dinners with veg on and i have to have an endless supply of fruit. She loves any pasta dishes. Sometimes i wish she would just eat chicken bloody dippers or fish fingers and chips when i cant be bothered to cook

She doesnt like crisps or anything from greggs. She likes sweets and chocolte but if i offered her a wham bar or a plum, she would pick the plum.

She doesnt like bread or butter either.

I think in some cases - maybe even many - it is caused by the parents, or perhaps just exacerbated? So a child starts a fussy phase - which is perfectly normal - but the parent deals with it badly and it gets worse. Definitely the case with one of my DSDs, it is really frustrating. It's almost a self fulfilling prophecy now, her mum endlessly rants about her fussiness (all the while feeding her junk food), comparing her unfavourably to her siblings who are easy going, and then wonders why she won't try new things. And yet DSD is much more experimental at our house and in food tech at school - funny that

Only a complete twat who was ignorant about ASD, dyspraxia etc would believe that ALL fussy eaters are like that though! Can't imagine how upsetting it must be for a child not to even eat 'naughty' foods - have to admit, MN has really opened my eyes to that.

If you're having someone round for tea though how hard is it to cook something that you know they would like. You don't have to cook separate foods.

If we have adult friends round to eat and I know they don't like something I don't cook it. I wouldn't dream of saying to them eat > or else you can't have pudding. Children also don't like some things.

In answer to the OP, no, not all 'fussy eaters' are like that because the parents load them up with shite. But I can't be bothered to go into all this again, as I find having to defend DS and his very real issues with food exhausting IRL, let alone over the interweb.

Lesley 33 summed it up well.

My DD was a very fussy eater and was underweight. If it were simply about eating nothing but junk would she not have been overweight?

There were a lot of junk foods she wouldn't eat too.

again, I do accept that no doubt some children are grossly overindulged by misguided parents...

However, this is most definitely not true of all 'fussy eaters'.

Isitreally, from what you've said, it sounds to me like your DS might be deliberately avoiding dairy. I have learned a bit about 'food issues' over the last few years (my DS has severe multiple food allergies). In your shoes, I'd be tempted to cut dairy out of his diet for a bit and see what happens (but obviously, dairy is a 'major food group' so please consult a suitable qualified health professional before you do anything drastic). Don't know if this will help, but I tried hard not to eat dairy throughout my childhood and could not understand why all the adults around me insisted I should eat it. I realise now that I had a mild intolerance to dairy - it always made me dreadfully nauseous and lethargic, but my (very young) mum took the advice of more the experienced people around her and kept feeding me dairy products, no matter how poorly I felt.

MarrianneM, is there really any need to be so judgmental????

About children in developing countries / children during rationing: it's clearly fair to say that a lack of choice may cure some 'fussy eaters' but I think we should also bear in mind that we in the 'western world' have remarkable healthy children overall and that our rates of infant mortality might rise quite quickly if we were not able to allow our children to avoid foods which stopped them from thriving (e.g. if a child has an allergy/intolerance to fish, and fish is all that's available, he will simply become malnourished or even die ).

My DS is an equal opportunities fusspot.

Yes he likes biscuits, crisps, pizza, chips, sweets and ice cream - would live on it if he could.

But he also hates cake, puddings of any sort, jelly, trifle, hamburgers.

I dont really mind catering for the odd friend over for dinner. I don';t find it that hard to find something cheap and quick to knock up that they will eat - pizza, pasta, something and chips. It's not a huge hassle, is it?

bubbleymummy and others - as my DS is on such a restricted diet (in his case this is because of allergies), I am happy to feed him biscuits and crisps if I know he has not eaten much. I just want him to have enough calories!! and I then try to balance his diet out over the rest of the week.

I have every sympathy for a mother who feeds their child 'crap' if he is hungry - nobody wants to see their child hungry and most of us feel some guilt for not having been able to balance their diet properly in the first place so that biscuits etc. would be unnecessary, so we 'give in' when perhaps we shouldn't...

I think it's completely different having a child that won't eat any food to a child that only wants to eat sausage or pizza, my children would like to just eat sausage pizza and chicken dippers but they are not aloud and know that however much they moan about it they will only be given these types of foods occasionally

greenbananas, and presumably in the past even in the UK, there would have been children allergic to eggs, dairy, gluten. They wouldn't have thrived and probably the first big illness that came along killed them. Child mortality was sadly so common.