Children’s diets - where does it all go wrong?

[Inmydreams88]

I am about to wean my baby in the next few weeks. Call me naive but I have high hopes that he will eat my delicious healthy food and enjoy it 🤣

I see most children (I work in a primary school) who eat poor diets. Obviously unless parents weaned them on chicken nuggets and Greggs sausage rolls then they were also weaned on nutritious healthy food, this led me to thinking where does it all go wrong? Is there actually anything I can do now whilst my baby is young that will impact his diet later on? Or do all children go through a beige fussy eating stage?

I completely understand some children have SEN/ND issues which can cause major issues with food, so this thread isn’t about that.

I just offer them a balance of foods and if there are things they’re not so keen on, I don’t insist they eat it but I continue to offer it to them. They usually eventually relent and decide they do in fact like tomatoes / peppers / celery / whatever. My children’s healthy diets are commented on a lot. I can’t get the youngest to eat anything of a certain texture (autistic) but they eat lots of fruit and veg.

Easy to not give crap if the kid eats. When you have to reintroduce fucking toast(yes I'm still salty about it 10 years on) , and your kid won't even eat most "crap" you try anything. Even McDonalds.

I find a lot of it comes down to time and the expense of fresh food nowadays.

I started off cooking a variety of things for my toddler to try and offering over and over again, but 9 times out of 10 he didn’t like what I offered and it ended up in the bin. I can’t afford to waste so much food and it’s frustrating when you’ve spent ages making different meals only for them to end up in the food waste, so am just going back to the things I know that he likes (which to be fair isn’t junk food- he eats meat, fruit, dairy etc, I just wish he would eat more of a variety ie he will only eat gammon or chicken, not beef or lamb).

For us it was school dinners. We did lots of fruit and veg and mostly what we were eating with reduced spice for curries and whatnot. Nursery did a lovely menu with tagines, curries, various pasta dishes, lots of focus on vegetables.

School really push all eating together, but it’s mostly stuff I wouldn’t normally serve so frequently. Battered fish/fish fingers/veggie nuggets and chips every Friday. Burger or sausage weekly. Pizza two weeks out of three (three week rotating menu changed each term here). On a Wednesday they have a midweek roast and you can alway request a jacket potato but realistically mine would be upset if the majority of the other kids had treat meals and they had jacket potato and there’s generally at least one day a week it’s the only thing they will eat.

I think this is absolutely true. Had a very fussy neuro diverse toddler who would literally scream and starve…but we emigrated when he was six to a country where beige, bland food was literally not readily available. It was an ordeal at the time for a good while, but he eventually started to eat more ‘normally’ and even though we are back in the UK now he hasn’t regressed and the good habits he had to acquire have stuck. I definitely think if you don’t let them get too used to those addictive convenience foods in the first place it is a whole lot easier than trying to undo it once they are hooked

This!
My children are not super into variety of vege so I blend in sauces/soups but that is it.
They all love fruit, meat, vege they like, soup, cheese, normal carbs etc.
I simply do not but chicken nuggets and get chips twice a month as my DH loves fish and chips.

Children that are offered several types of food per meal will not starve themselves.

Children that are offered several types of food per meal will not starve themselves.

They will if they don't actually eat it.

I agree. When I was a child and my parents were short of money and there wasn't the range of foods on offer now (late 1960s) I ate the homemade food put in front of me and so did all my friends. There was no-one telling me they were going to MacDonalds or getting pizza delivered. It just wasn't a thing.

It never crossed my mind that this was out of the ordinary until I witnessed a friend trying to tempt her child to eat. She had cooked sausages, but child refused so she cooked a burger, child refused, she did beans on toast - refused, then she boiled an egg. I was amazed!

I never did this with DS, although I did cut him some slack as he was 3 when he was adopted by us, so already had likes and dislikes which I had to fathom out as I went. But as long as I was fairly sure I hadn't served him something he didn't like, then I just took dinner away and told him go and play. I never offered anything else. Quite often he would come back 10 mins later and eat it. He wasn't going to starve to death if he chose not to.

This was the rule in my house growing up and it led to me having huge issues with food.

dc1 (age 8) doesn’t like anything with a sauce or melted cheese but will eat most veg and fruit. He would live off rice chicken and broccoli if I let him. He does love pizza and crisps but doesn’t really eat them unless we’re on a day out as we don’t buy it in our food shop.

dc2 (age 3) wouldn’t even touch fruit until she was about 2. Now she doesn’t stop eating it. Her first nursery had a chef who was from Pakistan and made the children the most incredible curry’s. Dc ate everything they cooked (she was about 15 months). Now she won’t touch chicken, doesn’t like nuggets/chips. Again would live off plain rice and peas or beans if I let her. She loves cucumber and cheese. She would live off deli meats if I let her. Won’t touch sandwiches or wraps or toast.

they are both quite fussy but do eat a lot of fruit and veg. Neither of them like anything but water or (or milk for dc2) to drink. Both were weaned on purée cooked from scratch.

just starting to wean dc 3 so hoping to get it right this time 😂

Both my kids went from eating anything on their plate to pretty fussy around the age of 2. I think it's fairly natural for many kids to prefer plain food if it's an option as there's less chance of it tasting 'challenging'. Their palates have expanded somewhat over the years, and going to school has actually helped to encourage them to try new stuff...like jacket potatoes which they hadn't wanted to eat since turning two 😁 I'd recommend the Division of Responsibility approach which has worked really well for taking the stress out of mealtimes during peak picky periods

I’ve had 2 who both went through a fussy stage

Ds14 ate everything as a baby and as soon as he went to primary he stopped eating veg would gag if he tasted a carrot. I just kept on as normal putting it on his plate and praising for trying and he started to get better around age 8 and now he’s very adventurous and will try anything.

ds4 again ate everything as a baby but a bout of tonsillitis age 18 months saw him cutting back on food especially meat and didn’t start eating it again until age 3.5. I took the same approach just kept offering and he’s gradually started eating things again. Bit different from the normal problems but he would always eat fruit and veg and loads of it!! he doesn’t like breaded or battered stuff just plain baked fish and chicken has to be on the bone. Eating out it’s normally pasta or pizza or a side dish plus some of ours. He’s not the most adventurous and isn’t a big fan of trying new things but I’m hoping he grows out of it, he generally comes back from holiday eating something new no idea why…

I think taking a relaxed approach has helped and keeping offering the food alongside something you know they’ll eat.

It went wrong with my restrictive eater at the move from puree to food being presented separately, in chunks. DC immediately picked out the preferred foods and refused the rest until we were left with a tiny range. At one point it was only potato. I got a bit desperate then and so offered things I thought might appeal, home made chicken nuggets, pizza, fish fingers, thinking it better than nothing. And there we were. This lasted until about age 12 when they gradually increased their range. Now a (very fit and healthy) adult, they eat a balanced diet, but still drawn from a small range of foods.

My (now adult) sons all eat a pretty varied diet. I think some of it is just luck - they all love their food and never really had to be persuaded to eat like some of their friends. They were exposed to a wide variety of foods from the start - we took them to Indian, Chinese, Thai restaurants from when they were babies in high chairs. My mum is indian so they were weaned on daal and rice, with onions and garlic and spices from quite young.

The other thing is, I never made a big song and dance about eating vegetables. They were just served up as part of the meal and there was no fuss made if they didn't eat something. Most of their meals were home cooked and we rarely had pudding, maybe a yoghurt or fruit sometimes. They ate sweets and crisps but these were treats on the weekend rather than every day.

I have 2 DS (3.5y and 15months). With the eldest we did baby led weaning, made meals from scratch and the ‘right’ things…since around 2-2.5y he refuses to touch any vegetables except peas and sweetcorn. Still loves fruit luckily. Admittedly we do hidden veg sometimes with him so I’ll make a tomato pasta sauce with a ton or vegetables in it and blitz it and tomato pasta is generally one of our go to meals so he’ll usually eat that without knowing what’s in it. He’s 3.5 now and a nightmare for eating, refuses most meals most day but will apparently eat everything he is given at nursery 🙄…he does have the occasional chicken nugget/fish finger meal as we know that will be a fairly stress free meal along with tomato pasta… and some days we just need one of those. My youngest DS at 15 months is still in the eat absolutely everything given to him phase, terrible parenting but he does also tend to get the chicken nugget/fish finger meal when his old brother has it through convenience but I know I can give him a plate of vegetables the next meal and he’ll eat it whereas my eldest won’t.

I remember reading an article or something that was about pickiness in toddlers. It said something along the lines of if, for example, you pick a strawberry and eat it, sometimes it will be sweet, sometimes sour, sometimes bitter….but every time you pick up a chicken nugget it will taste the same and this is the reason they tend to gravitate towards the ‘bland’ foods, they always know what it’s going to taste like.

Very happy to be corrected, but I feel like this is one thing we got right.

We fed DS an iteration of whatever we were having. Meal times were a family affair. This meant our meals were quite simple for a while. Eg. Scrambled egg, brocoli, rice, optional soy sauce (minimal).

We always offered pudding, and pudding was nutritious. Full fat Greek yogurt, a fruit he liked, oats (protein, carbs, vitamins). He loved this, so however little he ate at dinner, he had something with some nutritional content for pud.

We always had a "It's OK to not like it but let's try" mentality. If he rejected something, that's fine. There's always pudding. He surprised us and himself with the things he liked.

Now, he's 8. He eats lentils, curries, herby omelets, chilli, courgette pasta, tofu, fahitas, lots of grown up things. Often a side order of bread helps, with ratios agreed.

Ultimately food is good fuel and good pleasure in our house. I'm very aware that it might just be luck!

School, peer pressure and a love of burgers and pizza has set in. We counter this with veggie burgers and homemade wedges every other week, homemade pizzas. Last Saturday his treat of choice was homemade falafel, salad and halluni wraps.

There's plenty we've cocked up. But DS's relationship with food (so far) isn't one of them.

I haven't read all the thread but it goes wrong because biologically, a child's tastebuds are programmed to suddenly become suspicious of lots of foods when they become toddlers, because otherwise children would wander over to some tasty looking mushrooms and berries. They are supposed to become wary and need to relearn what they like, becoming quite suspicious in particular of bitter foods. Goodbye broccoli.

It doesn't help that every children's menu is identical and beige, arriving with chips.

I do think there’s lots of luck involved but the main thing that helped us I suspect was that we always eat together and have since he was 6 months. So chicken nuggets or whatever are never an option because I’m not having that for dinner. I also never ever tell him to eat more or to eat a particular item and never link it to pudding.

I would say it starts off well and then they hit around 18 months and turn into fusspots. In a panic parents offer food they know the child will eat and the variety drops.
It’s hard to keep offering something that is rejected again and again and again and you really have to push through. My 2 year old has only JUST accepted nibbling on brocolli and he’s had it I would say over 50 times on the side of his plate. Same with peas and he still won’t eat them.

My 5 year old recently wanted a pound to play pool in the pub we were having burgers and chips in. I told him if he put one lettuce leaf in the burger and ate it, I would give him the pound. He said, "oh, it tastes of nothing!"
Obviously that's not going to work for everything or everyone.

This. 100% this .

I also did the BLW and gave my kids most veg and fruit possible (apparently this helps) but they have different levels of fussiness. One does not eat eggs - which is annoying as we have chickens, the other one has an allergy to peanuts and won't eat avocado or raw onion, dislikes pepper but will eat them at a push. Both dislike sweet potato, lamb meat and salmon, but eat them occasionally. Apart from that they'll eat everything else, of course they would still prefer to eat hot dogs, pizza, burgers, chicken nuggets and chips if I allow them but I just make sure they have maybe one of these meals a week only. I think it is a constant battle even if you eat healthy from the very beginning unless you are prepared to NEVER have these processed foods in your household....

You are right, it's hard. Our rule is that they have to at least have a couple of bites. Their taste buds are constantly changing and you never know when they will find new love for a veg or fruit they hated before. My son never liked mangoes before then suddenly at around 5 he liked them...

DD1 started liking avocados when she was 10 years old. I didn't like mushrooms until.I was in my teens. DD2 is getting more adventurous with spicy food now at 15. Always keep trying things as their palates change.

Mine is very fussy and always has been. Was extremely difficult to wean, wouldn’t touch anything other than pureed mango. I only ever made homemade purées and started with savoury stuff. Also gave her a chunk of the actual veg to go with it. Did all the right things. We have never given her chicken nuggets and only ever home made fish fingers. Never gave her eg plain pasta - She eats pasta (this is our saviour as she’ll eat pretty much anything on it as long as it is blended) , pizza (home made only at home), tuna, jacket potatoes, pulses, Dahl, peas and sweetcorn, cheese. Will not eat anything with onions in. Which rules out a lot of things. She loves pretty much anything sweet, even though puddings at home are (generally) limited to fruit or greek yoghurt, fruit and oats. Never gave her processed snacks as an under 5. Eating out and travel is very difficult. Just been to NYC and she ate nothing but macaroni cheese for a week. France was very difficult as she doesn’t eat meat (literally never has). She had a meltdown on Father’s Day as we went out for Sunday roast and it came with cheesy leeks. She definitely would starve herself if presented with nothing but things with onions in, for example. She is recently diagnosed ND. Sometimes you can do everything right but it still goes wrong.
Things do get much harder when they start school though as a)SO MANY SWEETS everywhere - birthdays, rewards, in others children’s lunches b)parties, other peoples houses, seeing what friends eat. Mine didn’t have any processed food pre-school and only drank water. Parties are full of squash etc and she’s recently discovered a love for fizzy drink (thanks school disco).

The most frustrating thing with these threads is that people can never imagine a kid that doesn't feel hungry and isn't bothered about eating and the misery that comes with it.

The second most frustrating thing is the assumption that kids will just eat any crap because it's crap.

DD won't eat pizza , sausage rolls, drink any fizzy drinks, jams (or other things) that are "too sweet", ham/salami/any processed meats, didn't have a burger until y4 and that was at school,the same with sausages(and haven't yet managed to buy sausages she'll eat at home ) sweetcorn is too sweets, yes she eats nuggets but only certain nuggets, anything with any sauce on ,especially tomato sauce. She's just as limited in crap as she is in healthy foods.