To be utterly sick of the fussy eaters are made brigade

[ButterdickCumberscotch]

Title says it all.

I am so fed up of people assuming that my dd1 is fussy about food because I have made her that way, that I just feed her junk and sweets and if I only let her go hungry she would eat what is put in front of her.

She has come such a long way from being the 2 year old that would not eat anything but still has a long list of things she will not eat. Certain textures or something unexpected in her food makes her gag. Trying new foods is not something she enjoys although she is slowly getting braver.

And yes we sent her to bed many a time leaving an untouched dinner and it didn't make a difference. Her appetite is minuscule at the best of times and she'll happily skip a meal.

And why do people assume that because she has a small appetite and doesn't like a lot of foods that this means she must eat nothing but processed food? Her list of likes includes things like beef stew, porridge, eggs and many fruits and vegetables. Her dislikes are many but include pizza, chips and processed meats. So no, we don't feed her from a Findus freezer every night.

And then there is DD2. Loves nothing better than a home cooked meal and eats way more than her sister, yet has always been a tiny skinny thing. They are just different in their make up and eating habits.

I wish a 'fussy' eater upon those who are routinely smug about the fact they have been fortunate enough to have a child that does not have issues with food. AIBU?

no I didn't say children who weren't fussy grow into fat adults.

I said toddlers and children who see food as very important and happily stop playing to sit fun to eat or who are constantly asking your food and curating their plates often become fatter adults.

that's just my experience as a mum of 4 for 24 years, and a childminder of many children for years too.

I didn't say it was a scientific fact I said it was my experience.

also I actually don't see anything particularly bad or stigmatising in being fat.

fat people are not necessarily unhealthy. there are very many skinny unhealthy adults.

Jesus phone clearing plates!

sonlypuppyfat has a point. Would be interesting to know if fussy eating if more widespread in the West than in developing countries. If it is, then it must be something we are doing. Not as individual parants/ carers but our society as a whole.

I was a fussy eater as a child. Nothing as bad as my younger sister though, drove our Mother mad with worry.

Oddly enough our Mother is a fabulous cook - people were always queuing up for dinner invitations. That was part of the problem - she was such a good cook that I was genuinely horrified by school dinners with gristle and watery gravy. Or the discovery that outside our house most people in the 1970s thought they could make a curry by chucking a teaspoon of yellow powder and some raisins onto some diced chicken.

I reckon some people just aren't as sensitive to textures and flavours as 'fussy eaters'. I know texture was a big issue for me. It's great being a grown-up and being able to choose my own food, childhood days when people would try to force me to eat something that repelled me were horrid (there is a special circle of hell awaiting one particular dinner lady if there's any justice in the next world).

Very few people seem to realise there's a normal developmental shift in toddlerhood when children become very sensitive to the bitter tastes of green veg such as broccoli. Good evolutionary reasons for that one but it gets treated as 'being difficult'.

btw, I've struck lucky with ds, he definitely takes after dh and eats really well, happy to try new stuff. Doesn't get it from me! If we'd managed no. 2 I'm sure he or she would have been the fussy one...

Given the extremely high infant mortality rates in the developing world i think it's a reasonable assumption that most of the fussy eaters are dead.

My DS went 24 hours without milk - i'd expressed and my parents were going to get him to take a bottle at 6 months whilst we had a night away. He refused all their repeated efforts and made himself very ill.

But "babies never starve" themselves i'm told. Yeah right.

I think about DS's food issues all the time, we've seen dieticians, GP, psychologists, consultant paeds, OTs. And i too get very annoyed when it's insinuated i caused all his problems. Or worse i'm mean fir not sharing all the nice food in our fridge with him.

"Fussy eating" is massively misunderstood. I'd like to find the person that popularised the idea that it is all about children manipulating their parents, and slap them hard.
I was a reluctant and rather restricted eater as a child. I did not choose to be so, and would sometimes hope vainly that I would be able to swallow various foods without gagging, when I knew that I wouldn't. Quite a few posters have mentioned textures, and that was also one of my sticking points. I still can't eat anything that forms a skin without gagging, and also struggle to look at congealed food without gipping. Texture is definitely important. Smell, too - I still cannot stand eggs as the smell makes me nauseous. I will not cook them. DD eats them occasionally at other people's houses. DH also has a bit of a horror of them.

FWIW, my dad was subjected to being sent to bed with no dinner, having reheated, rejected dinners given back to him at subsequent meal times, and generally being forced to eat. He is in his late 60s, has the eating habits of a toddler and various gastrointestinal problems. Of all the things my mum did, I am grateful to her for abandoning "you will eat what you are given" very early, and letting me get on with it and grow out of it. And that was because she was determined I would not end up like Dad.

Pica - some of the fussy eaters may actually be better off, if the food they prefer is available. In theory at least sensitivity and caution around food may prevent exposure to contaminated or 'off' or otherwise risky food that less 'fussy' children may be prepared to eat.

I think there's a comparison to the evolutionary argument for sensitivity to bitter tastes developing during toddlerhood - that it stopped children nibbling tasty berries that hadn't been checked by their parents.

Obviously this doesn't apply in desperate situations where people just need to eat whatever they can find. But there's a big difference between 'developing country' and 'famine'.

Sometimes having a fussy eater is advantageous....My eldest DCs are at Uni and don't drink alcohol because they don't like the taste of it. It must have saved them (and us, to some extent) lots of money.

I've got 2 fantastic eaters (1 of whom was fairly fussy as a toddler) and 1 much fussier one so I agree that some children are naturally more fussy.

We are getting there slowly with dc3. I cook one meal for all of us and try to ignore the fact he's picking out the acceptable bits - slowly over time more bits seem to be being tolerated.

I have an almost three year old fussy eater, and the number if times I've heard SIL say 'well in my house he'd go to bed hungry'. Yep, but due to medication he takes he has low blood sugar levels and so is hypoglyceamic and unless I want to be calling out an ambulance in the morning I cannot let him go to bed without something in his tummy. Medically I'm told to allow him to drink fruit juice and eat sweets (but he refuses to eat them so he gets sultanas!), so if he doesn't eat his evening meal he'll get toast and an apple.
And he was a fantastic eater as a baby, but it was like a switch in him when he was about 1. Luckily most fruit and veg he'll eat, and only very recently he tried a chicken nugget. Wouldnt eat a sausage, burger, pie etc so its not about eating junk.
He has a speech delay - and his therapists weren't at all surprised he's fussy.
And we've seen a nutritionist and she wasn't worried. She thought that although I considered him to be fussy - what he would eat was from the different food groups (and almost all homemade - inc nuggets!) and with all the other issues we have if we calmed own and let him be he would get there. And we have noticed this, if we even comment on him eating (even to say 'good eating') he'll stop. If we pretty much ignore him, after a while he'll as a minimum touch the new food and sometimes he'll try it. We've just got to play the long game!

I would hazard a guess, that for the poor living in developing countries, the food available would likely be a very limited range of (at least) party quite bland, simple foods such as bread, rice, fruit and veg.

My grandfather was a young boy in Greece during WWII and was the second son of a very poor, widowed, older mother of 4 children, in a country and town destroyed by several conflicts. The family ate bread, maybe 4 types fruit (whatever was on season, so probably the same one fruit for months), feta cheese and maybe 5 types of vegetables (again, seasonal). All very simply prepared, to be economical with fuel. That was it. Smaller range than many fussy children have (mine included).

Also, in those kinds of environments, the discipline culture tends to be different - children might be literally forced to eat, which in current Western societies is generally not advised. Immediate survival in those circumstances is too important to consider anything else. And, of course, like someone already mentioned, some children will always be too fussy to even be forced into eating, so they will just get sickly and die.

I don't know. It's a very emotional subject, isn't it? I feel guilty for DS's (4) fussiness, but I have now counted that he eats 14 veg and 16 fruit. But ONLY raw, NOT cooked or in any way processed. Doesn't like many types of "junk food" e.g. burgers or pizza (I'd love him to try - I've tried all that "making your own pizza with funny faces", but nada success), but will sometimes eat chicken nuggets, fish fingers or chips. He likes boiled and fried eggs, hummous, chili ryvita.. He will eat rice and pasta with pesto or tiny bit of tomato sauce, but NOTHING else mixed. And only one type of kids' strawberry yoghurt. Cheeses are a bit hit and miss, but he likes mild grated cheese, philly and loves Italian hard cheeses, but, again, NOT on top of bread, only possibly on top of pasta, but preferably separately. I think overall, his diet is pretty balanced, but he will not eat many hot meals or even sandwiches, so appears terrible. He just wants everything as unprocessed and separate as possible.

A whole carrot, a whole apple, a chunk of parmesan, a hunk of bread, a boiled egg, few stalks/leaves of chives.. that's probably going to be his lunch box next year

Sympathies OP. My twelve year old has been a food refuser all his life. He has issues with texture and hates meat, chicken, pork, most fruit. He does eat most vegetables, loves curry, prawns, mushrooms, most asian food. He'd starve rather than eat the things which make him feel bad (his description).

I have learned to live with it and just ignore the doubters.

My dgs is so fussy same lunch everyday and same dinner every night, drives me mad but dd remains calm and I'm sure this is the right attitude. He has seen school nurse, school doctor all say just keep offering other food basically they never met such a fussy eater before - their words - so can't really offer any advise. He has a genuine fear of trying anything new. He refuses to try anything this includes refusing medicine never had calpol since he was tiny and has been lucky to never need antibiotics, until today.
What a terrible time trying to get him to have medicine, he was screaming/gagging dd crying as a last resort I played "bad cop" dragged him off into another room got really cross, went on about how he had upset mummy eventually he drank it (pharmacist suggested putting it in juice) by now I was in tears.
2nd dose due at bedtime dgs said no he wouldn't have it gagging at the thought of it then suddenly just did it. We were all so proud of him and he was proud of himself, what a break through.

Pavlov, your DS and mine must have been separated at birth! Same utter dislikes and shocking sleep routine.

I am in a real conundrum about my lot.
DS1, weaned on purees at 16 weeks...fussy as a baby/toddler. Didn't like the usual kiddy foods; pizza, chips, macaroni cheese etc as a little one. Now almost 12 and still struggles with chips, cooked cheese (so pizza, lasagne and mac'n'cheese out), mayonnaise, ham (but loves bacon) but eats generally everything else.

DD, weaned at 22 weeks on a combination of purees and baby led weaning. Will try anything once and eats pretty mcuh all that an adult would eat, including strong cheese, olives, chillis

DS2, weaned at 26 weeks, totally BLW and until about 18 months would try anything and eat most of it. Now five and will only eat pasta, preferably with just butter but will eat cheese, tomato or bolognaise sauce, sweet and sour chicken, noodles, plain rice, chips, bread. The only veg he will suffer are sweetcorn and cucumber. He will eat fruit. He gags on mash and won't even try potato of any form other than chipped. He has recently started eating fish (must be battered), and chicken (but only in chinese style sauces). Until yesterday when he ate some nuggets at McDonalds, he would ask for a plain burger, chuck away the meat and have a chip butty. He lives on bread, pasta, cereals, fruit and his two veg. He frint loads, so eats a huge brekkie, moderate lunch and very littel tea/supper. And he is a terrible sleeper, up at five most days screaming hunger. Co-incidence? I think not. But we can't force him to eat.

So, is it a girl/boy thing or a choice thing? DC2 is a girl but had the most choice as an infant and she is the least bother. Go figure.

I'm sure things are starting to change in the developing world though, with more choices etc. from my own experience of visiting relatives, as someone up thread said, choices are generally limited and food is seasonal. I still remember when I visited over the winter once, that the only vegetables on offer were spinach and potatoes. Eaten with rice and lentils. Twice a day, every day. I don't think anyone can afford to be fussy in those circumstances.

Back here, sometimes I wonder why it's important to give as much variety as possible? As long as the food that they are eating is healthy, does it matter if they "fussy"? And why aren't children not allowed to have likes and dislikes and if they don't eat something it's described as fussy?

I think the word fussy is overused and covers everything from a bit fussy to extreme phobia of foods. As a term, I find it very unhelpful. My DS is an extreme resistant (non) eater but would be classed as fussy.

daisy wow they really are! Ds eats most in the morning, least at night, that is is worst meal time. He doesn't like any veg though. Unless I hide it in sauce, blend it thoroughly. He will eat mash though. Now. That took some time. He won't eat any sandwiches at all apart from peanut butter ones. And he wakes up early too!!

Personally, I try to make a distinction.

Fussy eaters in my mind are those who don't dislike food but just want to only eat food they love. This is very different to people with genuine hatred of food or those who don't eat much.

In that context I can see why the trend is towards obesity. I'd rather eat the foods I love all the time, rather than good that's ok and I don't dislike but would eat if I didn't need to in order to fuel my body.

Around the world it's common for children to avoid fruit and veg - it's also common, especially in tropical countries to avoid giving children fruit and veg because they worry it will cause diarrhea (which may well be true). Our culture is actually pretty unusual in trying to make children eat those things.

My perfectly normal sensible DH can be fussy with food and would go without rather than eat some of the foods he dislikes. He tries new food and is adventurous so I don't think it is that he has a bad attitude about it.
He particularly dislikes pepper and can taste the smallest amount in a spicy curry. I find it quite remarkable.

YANBU

I am a fussy eater, grew up with my mother who eats everything under the sun.

Even now, I would rather starve than eat certain foods and I will gag and be sick if made to eat something.

I also have a fussy eater, he is worse than me. His issues are sensory.

My DS won't eat fruit. I am often told about how kids need to be presented with something lots of times oooh almost as many as 25 before they eat it.

As well as at home, DS was offered a fruit platter at preschool every day, 4 days a week for 2 years. So at least 300 times. He never even touched it left alone ate it - b t he did stop crying at the sight of it after a year so result.

Since hallowe'en i have kept a little basket full of sweets and lollipops and stored it at child eye level. DS of course won't touch it. But it's been a useful way of getting people to take on board how different he is.

Ds's 'fussiness' stems from a combination of having severe reflux (associating swallowing with pain), having dental pain (has no enamel on back teeth and reflux which has led to decay), having sensory processing difficulties (certain textures make him very upset) and having a very rigid personality. He eats a very limited diet, despite eating with his parents and sisters (who have a normal level of likes and dislikes of foods).

People probably raise their eyebrows when I get out his lunchbox in a cafe (that is a whole other thread!) but it is a long slow process of gently trying to encourage him to try different foods and make sure he is getting enough nutrients.

YANBU

I have a brother and a sister. We were all brought up the same, weaned the same etc.

Me and my sister have always happily eaten anything. We are both healthy, slim adults.

My brother on the other hand has always been what would be described as 'fussy'. The only fruit he will eat is apples and the only veggies are peas and carrots.

He doesn't like things with sauces on or things were foods are mixed e.g. he will eat a roast dinner but can't stand it with gravy on. Can't eat spag bol - too much sauce plus he can't stand the texture of mushrooms and peppers.

So, all in all his diet is quite limited and he does like things like chips more than 'healthy' food.

Thing is, he isn't just being awkward - certain textures/combinations just make him gag . Thankfully, our parents never made a huge fuss - they encouraged him to try new things but if he couldn't they left it.

He's now 32 and despite his limited and rather 'unhealthy' diet he suffers from no health problems and as a soilder is as fit as a fiddle!

So fussy eating isn't the end of the world x