Am I being unreasonable to suggest that kids who are faddy eaters have been "allowed" to become so?

[Lucia39]

This will no doubt get me "flamed" but hell, I don't want to watch the Champions League final so have left other half and teenage son to do so on their own - a good opportunity for some "male bonding" with some beer!

So, what do other parents think? Are faddy eaters born or made?

I recognise that we all have certain foods that we don't particularly care for or like but once those dislikes have been identified surely everything else should be accepted and eaten? I always advocated the "taste it and see" approach which generally worked. Although I wouldn't suggest that a two year old be given red hot Indian food just to "taste and see", but .... you never know!

I also often wonder if some children are faddy because their repertoire has been so limited and/or bland that they view anything that looks or tastes "different" with suspicion.

When I was growing up there was always an option at meal-times "take it or leave it" and my mother held to the view that when we were hungry enough we'd eat. I am also quite sure that a day without solid food will not actually harm any child!

not a one to be had in these parts.

Lucia, I think some faddy eaters are definitely made.
ds's friend eats everything without complaint at her child minders but rolls on the floor in hysterics with her parents if she has to eat anything that isn't the colour of chips and other such unthreatening carbs.

We had friends whose daughter would only eat Pizza Express margarita pizzas, Cocopops and one flavour of Frube. We felt she was totally manipulating the parents.

Our ds is only allowed to refuse to eat a couple of things, he's not allowed to refuse whole food groups.

No pudding if they don't try it is a good one. Manipulation over food is the oldest and most powerful weapon in the child's arsenal I think. Tough to sort it out but nightmare if the parents don't!

No curries there? I couldn't go longer than a few weeks without my chicken chasni or korma.

oh, three places do curries.

in town.

we're 11 miles outside of that.

so it's Patak's mostly .

Babies are practically weaned on curries in Glasgow. Curry and Irn Bru.

Not sure about this- my ds1 would eat anything and everything until he was 2.
then he had MMR and ds2 was born and he got ignored for a bit.

he stopped eating much for about 6 months and then became the fussy eater that he is today. For him it is all about texture and he won't eat anything wet/sloppy.

he laos had OCD on and off over the yrs and does crzy things like stripping naked to wash when he's having an OCD type session.
it's all about touching wet stuff soemhow.

He is very fussy and i don't pander ot it but i do see him physically blanch and his little hands start curling into fists and back again if you put sloppy food in front of him. Bless him, sometimes he tries and gets a plate of sloppy food in fromt of him, and rarely he'll eat it. but you can see him struggling to swallow and looking very freked out somehoww.

I dpn't think i made this happen by my behaviour- it jsut seemd to be one day he was eating jerusalem atrichoke stew, the nest he was refusing anything wet
But i did have a new born at the time so could have been something else going on.

Patak's curry pastes are rather nice.

I can make a great curry that tastes like a restaurant curry but I can't make a good peshwari naan without a tandoor oven so I'm a regular at our local Indian.

i prefer a madras, so i need my IrnBru to wash it down .

i can't wait for 'Mumbai Calling' to start!

my Indian cousin is waiting for it to start, too, on iPlayer.

And now I'm craving curry, curry and Cherry Garcia. You're a bad influence!

...wonders if she could wake dp up and ask him to drive her to the curry house in Glasgow that's open until 4am.

When will that be on and which channel? I can't see it on Iplayer.

i've seen it, expat. the indian cast shits all over the uk cast. it's not that great, tbh. could be better if they let the indian actors do more, imo.

itv saturday 9.30pm i think.

i've got some nice leftover chicken.

might break out the madras.

can't sleep the night.

preoccupied and all.

Thankyou Aitch.

I could settle for pakora right now.

I don't have any chicken I could make a curry with at the moment. Anyone for corned beef jalfrezi though?

I have a Moroccan lamb stew which would do nicely, but it's frozen and I don't want to risk food poisoning.

Everything ok Expat? Besides the lack of a curryhouse of course.

IMOH-fussy eaters are made these days. As a child-50 odd years ago the only thing I absolutely could not eat was liver and puddings were a rarity. On 'Liver' day I stayed school dinner . Today-I can tolerate it. I cannot however eat KFC or any type of fast food burger. My sons will eat most things I cook. They were all introduced to vegetables at a young age-some they liked,some they didn't. I have one who will only eat raw veggies. Unfortunately, in todays climate,a lot of young children eat what their young parents eat.

Ach, just the usual worry, Thunder. I need to find us another place to live in a few months is all.

I'm sorry Expat.I hope you can get that sorted soon so you don't have to lose any more sleep.

, thunder.

we still eat ethicallly produced meat.

I wouldn't consider talking to you if you didn't!

I'm off to bed now. I hope you're getting some sleep Expat.

Have scrolled down to end, so will prob replicate everything- sorry
YES robust attitude re food does make for a less fussy eater.

NO that it's a good thing.

I used to be so proud of my 'try anything, no such thing as bad food' DCs, so proud of their seemingly healthy attitude to food until I was called into school to discuss DD1's eating disorder. She's in pieces. I'm in pieces. Wish I'd been a bit more relaxed 12 years ago.

Ouch LambethLil, I hope that things work out for you and your poor dd. My mother was very fierce on fussiness and I do wonder what would have happened if any of us had had an eating problem. I don't think it would have been good. I did the "highly stressed pandering to his every whim" thing with ds (horrible time) when he was weaning and he has turned out to be an excellent eater. Partly because he is always hungry (very very active skin and bones child) and partly because he genuinely likes new things and figured out very early that it made key people n his life very happy. dd was much fussier, and had a real texture thing going on, which I am sure was a genuine dislike/fear (everything had to be very plain, and she really didn't like meat at all). Over time she has gradually expanded her horizons, and I am confident that by the time she has left home she will be as adventurous as ds in her culinary interests. However nothing more annoying than all that rubbish about hiding things in sauces (yes that really works when your child screams if there is a speck of sauce on the plate) or arranging them on the plate in a pretty way (great to play with, doesn't actually make you any more inclined to eat it) helping with cooking (dd loved/loves to cook - doesn't mean she will eat what she has helped with though) eating as a family (we've always done that). Some children just do have issues about food, and it is a really difficult one to work through at times. I think only patience really works. Oh and yes dd was much more likely to eat "better" away from home, but I do think that was partly because what she was offered at nursery, by the childminder/nanny was in general far more bland and restrictive than the food I like to eat and serve.

On the positive side dh was pretty fussy when I first met him (ate quite a limited range of "safe" foods he'd come across before) but within a few years of having his horizons widened is now an excellent cook of many interesting things.

Re the third world discussion, I wonder whether if you have a more restricted diet fussiness is much more unlikely even if you are not starving, just because there will be far fewer surprises on your plate. We live in a world with a huge range of food choices, some of which would not have been expected even by our parents (talking to my mother the regular food range she grew up with was much much smaller than mine, and that for my children is much wider than my experience growing up too).

Lucia39 - Ha ha ha, is that your response. You're not worth my breath, you obviously have some issues. I'm off

nooka, I agree with all you have written.

I have been thinking, I mentioned earlier about my DC1 who has food allergies. Now he was the one I let get away with anything - his diet, being dairy-free, was so low fat that I worried hugely about him getting the right food groups/calories. He was and is very skinny, and I don't think he would be if he could eat an ordinary diet. So if he wouldn't eat the main course, there was no way I was going to withhold pudding - he needed it! (That's how I saw it.)

You'd think that is exactly the parental behaviour that would create a fussy eater. Yet he isn't. He loves anything and will try anything. It's just how he's made.