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!

I always thought I was fussy and didn't like meat or veg unless it was processed, till I started going out with a chef and realised my parents just overcook everything! So I always thought that meat had to be tough and tasteless, and that rare meat would be horrible, till I tried it once to impress said boyfriend, and now I love it!
DD will eat absolutely anything, in fact the other day i had a samosa, and left half of it as it was too spicy for my pregnant belly. DD (2.3) toddled over and ate the rest, no problem! We are trying to teach her to at least try everything. She first had blue steak at the age of 9 months, and loved it, blood dripping down her chin and everything!

I remember a little girl coming round ours for tea one night when i was small, and my parents getting a takeaway as a treat. The girl wouldn't eat chinese, indian, chicken or pizza. she ended up eating plain chips. How bloody rude! She was about 11 as well, not some toddler going through a phase.

I will respect vegetarianism on ethical grounds (not on silly squeamish grounds)and actual allergies (not made up ones) or special needs. Everyone else is just being a wimp, and rude.

I have favourite foods, like everyone else, but I can honestly say there is nothing that I would refuse to eat if I was somebodies guest and they put it in front of me. I will try absolutely anything, and if I don't like it, I will try it again at a later date, as it might have not been cooked properly or my tastes might have changed, and I hope my children will be the same.

If you ever hear of me cooking a different meal for a member of my family, please shout at me!

To put another slant on things we had DS's follow up with the surgeon who performed his tonsilectomy.

One of his first questions was how is DS doing with eating and trying different things - well the answer is he has completely changed - he is trying stuff for the 1st time in about 2.5 years - funnily enough from when he first got tonsilitus! The surgeon said you get many small children who just won't try certain foods because they touch the backs of their throat and as they had big scarred up tonsils it is not a nice experience for them!

So there you go - my fussy little bugger was actually having a reason not to try things - other than him being a fussy little bugger!

it was good, wasn't it? and some of those parents were really pushing it, weren't they, with all their 'eat something eat SOMETHING' stuff. so sensible to say 'just take a step riiiiiiiight back' imo, not even remotely controversial when you actually saw the footage of their mealtimes.

Bloody hell - we don't have a repetoire in our house - we have a menu but most certainly not a repetoire!

i think how you deal with the faddy child counts and determines how long it will go on for . I know that i gave in for an easy life with my ds and even now at nearly 15 he is a complete nightmare to feed ,will change his mind weekly aswell ,usually once ive stocked the freezer with this weeks favorite food .A friend of mind said something which i think rings true ,most children will eat thier favorite food all the time ,but life isnt like that so they need to accept that some days they arnt going to get their favorite . My ds will physically make himself sick if i try to get him to eat anything he doesnt 'like' . I have decided that soon i am going to make him come shopping with me and give him a budget to buy his own food and he will have to cook it too .

I was considered a fussy eater as child.

I didn't like certain foods which as an adult I still really don't like ie eggs. That's not fussy IMO, that is genuine not liking a foodstuff.

Other items I hated as a child such as kidney beans were more to do with texture and, er, imagination, than being fussy or faddy. I learned to like kidney beans in my teens.

come round to my house, lissy, and i'll offer you a poo on a plate. see if you'll eat that... for a lot of kids, that's how they're seeing the foods they hate, they literally repulse them.

I wish they'd repeat it.

I remember the youngest child most clearly, and how his parents were literally hovering over him. How anyone is expected to eat while two people are doing that I've no idea.

shineoncrazydiamond Quote ["Not ' quoting, unquoting ' people this evening then?"] End quote

I had no cause until you posted but I would hate to disappoint!

I daresay you're lovely too!

Aitch I think I made up the theory myself a long time ago, to expplain the phenomena of 'man looking' recognised and named by a very astute american friend.

it does seem to bear up in real life, in my (ahem) fairly limited cohabiting experience.

maybe we could do a MN poll, would it count as science fact? we could write up a paper on it!

I'm a twin, and a vegetarian. My twin would just about eat peas, and tried a mushroom for the first time when she was 20. Our parents were of the school of eat it or go hungry.

I agree that you have to demonstrate healthy eating to kids - if they don't see you eating stuff themselves why would they try it - but some kids are just plain awkward, and this is a self-limiting thread.

I think the OP has maybe been particularly lucky with her DC... if your child had a very different temperament you might have found it much more difficult to "re-educate" him.

I'm generally lucky with DS, but cannot convince him to eat fruit other than in disguised form. I'm fairly sure I haven't compounded this, one day he just decided to spit out his mouthful of banana and hasn't entertained it since. I'll keep casually offering it but am determined not to make it a big issue.

It must be really hard-work having a difficult eater and I can imagine that judgements from other parents is just what you don't need!!

OP give yourself a huge pat on the back for being so bloody wonderful that your child isn't a fussy eater. When you've finshed doing that, maybe you could explain why my two children have completely different tastes - to the point of it being nigh on impossible to cook a meal that they will both enjoy - even though they have been brought up exactly the same way and not pandered to.

Getting a bit bored with all the smugness on MN today tbh

Fussy eaters are born (or made through circumstances like illness/bad associations with food)- no question. You can't make a child into a fussy eater by "pandering" but you can make them worse by fussing and making a big deal out of food/eating.

Yes you could probably make a fussy child eat anything if you STARVED them but some would probably go to the point of malnutrition (or worse) and you might get into trouble with the authorities for that

you HAVE to do a thread on it, dreamylady, it's GENIUS. there's a nobel prize in it, i'm sure.

would that this were a self-limiting thread, dreadpirate.

i think faddy eaters are made by their parents/carers/even nannies

i have never had a fussy eater in 18years of nannying, and most of my dc have been babies

i think if you give a good range of foods when young then they get used to different flavours and textures

i dont make children eat their food, they get a choice if i know they like it and if they dont eat it for whatever reason, then they sit at atble till others have finished and then nothing till next meal

if it is something new, i say try it, and if they dont like it fair enough

i cant think of anything that my 3 dc dont or wont eat tbh apart from eldest doesnt like cherry tom or lettuce

"I can put food in front of ds that he won't eat - EVER

Would you eat dog poo, even if you were starving?"

starlight - dog poo isnt food though is it

My first two were fussy from the word go. Gagged on lumps. Wouldn't eat various things. Didn't force them to eat something but wouldn't provide an alternative if the food was refused. Number 3 ate anything and everything.

Me and DH both had school dinners in the days when you had to eat everything. I was a fussy child and was cured by school. He was fussy and regularly threw up

Brother often spent entire Sunday afternoons sat looking at his plate of congealed dinner and would not eat it. My father would not tolerate fussy eaters and was horrified that both of his children were fussy. But then my mother will only eat a very limited range of food, so it isn't surprising.

Think they are born not made, but can be improved

Rubbish! I eat anything, DH eats anything, we were super chilled with DD, introduced all the right foods at the right time. She eats NOTHING!!!!

Of course I am lying, she would not eat nothing... OK so she eats meat and veg and oat cheerios. Thats about it! No carbs, no sweets, nothing you would expect a toddler to eat. Just the odd bag of raisins..... space alien and no child of mine!

Aitch, I would agree if it was something that no-one else around the table was eating, but if everyone else is eating it, and suffering no ill effects, then why won't they at least try it?

I don't make a fuss if DD won't eat her tea. I just take it off her, put it in the fridge to be reheated later, and let her go off and play. She usually wants it back pretty soon once she see everyone else is still eating.

And, yes, if you could do something to the poo to make sure it wouldn't poison me (for example I know there is a type of cat that eats coffee beans that you can then use the pooed out beans to make coffee with) and it was some kind of delicacy somewhere in the world, then of course I'd try it! Why not try something that isn't going to poison you?

Easy to be smug and presume it's the parent's fault when the luck of the draw gave you a child who will eat anything.

I "forced" (screeched like a banshee in his face) ds to eat a bowl of cereal that he was complaining about one morning.

Later in the day I realised that the milk had been extremely off

In my defense dh was going into hospital for a major op so I was very stressed. But still to this day about it.

nope. i'm giving you a poo on a plate. we eat it in our house. you'll not know whether we have built up immunity or whether it's poisonous. be polite and eat up, there's a dear.

"You can't make a child into a fussy eater by "pandering" but you can make them worse by fussing and making a big deal out of food/eating."
I guess thats how I feel. DS1 will complain about things like onion in shepherds pie (he'll eat it fine if he cant see it so its not the taste) our answer is normally well eat everything else then and leave him to it. I suspect I could make him into a fussy child but to be honest I don't really think about it. If theres something I know they genuinely dont like I'll try not to give it to them but with six of us (feeding 5 so far) I'm not going to make life hard for myself We also eat with them which I think helps.

I am sure you can create a fussy eater out of a non-fussy eater if you put your mind to it

but the other way round might be harder

both of mine have gone through fussy phases which they have grown out of after I have refused to pander to them

but that is totally different from having a genuinely fussy eater, the kind of child that will end up on a feeding tube before they cave in

it's about knowing your own child and how far you can push them

not sticking to a one-size-fits-all formula