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

[Giillie]

One of my close friends has 4 kids 8,6,5 and 3. Her husband is Middle Eastern she is French. Every time we meet up I notice her kids are so unfussy with food, she tells me what they have had for tea and it’s stuff my kids would never touch, no issues with fruit, no issues with veg some of her kids have one specific thing they don’t like (like one of her kids hates bananas but will eat any other fruit).
Friend has got into a habit of saying it’s the way “British” parents raise their kids.

AIBU to think it’s nothing to do with British vs French/Middle eastern parenting and just luck that all her kids are great eaters?

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 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.

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!

It's definitely both

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.

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.

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 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

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.

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

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!

Everyone has food preferences. But if you don't feed your toddler chicken nuggets and Dino waffles with spaghetti hoops then they won't know they exist, until sometime later in childhood when they've decided that broccoli is probably alright. Then they can eat both if you need to provide a quick meal

I will add that I have hosted international teenage students for many years. Japanese eat everything put in front of them and Brazilian are fussy

I think she can have been lucky. I have 5 kids, 4 of whom have never been a problem when it comes to food, even the ND ones. And then I have one with ARFID and a severely restricted diet for most of his life. They were all raised the same way with food. He is my middle of 5 and a twin and they were literally fed the same food but from weaning he was always more of an issue.

Bit of both.
My kids (8,5,3) eat anything. They've never been asked or been given choices, this is what we are eating, so eat it.
But it is perfectly normal for kids to only eat what they are familiar with. My nieces and nephews don't like pizza, but tripe is a treat. Expecting kids to eat such a variety of flavours is really quite a modern phenomenon I think. As long as they aren't being raised on beige "kid" food it's fine.

I suspect you are more likely to be lucky with your second child if you were lucky with the first - DS2 copies DS1 and wants to eat what he's eating. So he also doesn't want to eat things he sees his older brother rejecting. Grr.

Actually though I'm having quite good results with getting DS1 (who is 3) to eat his broccoli by convincing him this will help DS2 (who is 1) to want to try his.

It’s both IMO. I grew up in a lower income home with limited nutritious food and I grew up on a crappy diet with awful ideas about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ food. All the other kids, and myself, in the bubble I grew up in had very strong opinions on what they’d eat or not, and it was (to a point) catered for. Think: not enough time/money to make 2 meals, or to provide foods ‘for exposure’ so parents just bought the frozen stuff they knew their kids would eat.

I knew I wanted things to be different with DS so I researched a tonne and put in loads of effort to providing wide ranges of food from scratch, and he now eats it all with little fuss. Of course I’m ‘lucky’ in that he doesn’t have any SEN or ARFID which would effect this, but I definitely think there’s been some impact in consistently making healthy-ish decisions with food and trying hard to find the right balance.

I think it somewhat parenting but a lot to do with the food culture there.
I have a friend living in France with their spouse and child. It is a homecooked meal and sitting at the table for every meal. They don't eat things like chicken nuggets, pizza, chips etc.

The other thing I notice is the food served in school. The school her child goes to gives out a monthly menu and it is better than many restaurants I have been to. All homecooked with locally sourced ingredients.

I did, and pretty much still do, exactly this. At 16mo DD was the most amazing eater.

At 16yo she is really fussy. Not in a sensory way or anything, just very particular and very reluctant to try new foods ... it's an ever changing process so how a toddler eats tells you nothing 😆

It’s definitely true that some people choose to feed their children what they think of as “kids’ food” (chicken nuggets etc) and then complain later on that their children are fussy.
Some children obviously the parents try them on all sorts and for various reasons they will only eat certain foods.

We’ve always, right from the start of weaning, given our DC what we’ve been having for dinner. Luckily they don’t have any additional needs that make food difficult for them, but we consciously chose to not ever give them separate meals because they’re children.

I remember asking mine what they would like for lunch.

Invariably there were no suggestions & when lunch was served it was met with "but we didn't want that"😂

So "what don't you want?" became the question for a while!

My culture (white, British) growing up was basic home-cooked meals, at a time when all my mates were getting chips and processed food like ready-made pies in tins and Smash.
That was because my DParents were much older than most of my mates’ parents, and didn’t trust the onslaught of “new” foods, and were also revelling in the fact that rationing had finished 6 years before I arrived, so many foods not available since 1939 were now plentiful and realistically priced.
I did feel as if I was missing out, but gradually came to appreciate food made from scratch, a practice I continued when I moved out.
Although my cooking has altered to include a far greater range of influences, I still try to create every meal from scratch now - and the recent revelations about UPF’s seem to be a reason to continue with this approach.
My DC were also given a huge variety of foods to try from a young age, by simply eating the same as us - and I think that’s the key: once you start kids on “kids food” (the kind that has those addictive additives in them), they don’t want the variety of “adult food” that comes from natural ingredients…

I'm British and my son isn't fussy with food. I find the key is to make sure children are given a broad spectrum of food when they're weaned. Often parents are fussy eaters, and won't cook/buy/offer foods they don't like themselves. Automatically, you're cutting down the types of food offered, simply because the parent doesn't like them! I also think some adults have a narrow outlook with food choices, they've never eaten them, so wouldn't think to offer them to their children. I think sometimes it's learned behaviour. My son eats most things, and is always willing to try new foods. Yes, there are certain foods, he really doesn't like, but overall he's really good.

I also think it's a bit of both. I cooked, and still do everything from scratch, all different cuisines and introduced so many different foods from weening.

My best friend did exactly the same, except her 3DC would eat absolutely everything put in front of them and my 2DC wouldn't.

We have the same parenting styles so I can only put it down to luck on her part.

I am pleased though that they are now very adventurous in their eating.

Parenting absolutely plays a part, and exposing children to a wide range of tastes, flavours & textures from day 1 weaning absolutely helps.

I have always found that if you travel and look for a kids menu in other countries the meals are basically just smaller portions of adult meals, whereas in the UK a kids meal is chicken nuggets/burger/hot dog/fish fingers & chips. Little things like that can make a big difference.