When does fussy-eating lead to malnutrition?! Excuse long post....

[staranise]

My DD, aged 2, has NEVER eaten a vegetable, in her life, ever. She skipped that whole pureed veg at 6 months as she completely refused to eat off a spoon and so I was forced to do baby-led weaning, and she never chose to eat a veg or anything (eg, bread with guacamole) that had veg on it. She will only eat:

Processed meat: sausages, ham, salami etc
Some plain meat: chicken etc
fruit: bananas, apples, bluberries
Bread: only with butter
Olives
Pesto
Chips (but no other forms of potato)
Boiled eggs
Yoghurts

Occasionally she will eat pasta in cheese sauce, bolognaise etc, but always picks out the most minutest bits of onion, celery etc. She only really enjoys v processed food eg fish fingers etc. She very often is happy to skip a meal, especially if it contains anything that is not on her list of things she eats. I've tried star chart, withholding her yoghurt, cooking with her etc. We have an allotment so she is able to grow and pick her own veg but she's still not interested.

HV says she's fine but I can't help compare her diet with what her older sister eats ie, almost everything. It jsut seems so unhealthy! Any wise words of advice would be most appreciated, thank you!

Hi Staranise, TBH I think her diet seems fine, she has some things on her list that my DS wouldn't touch with a bargepole such as olives and pesto, and he very rarely eats meat - I would be over the moon if he ate sausages, ham and chicken. She is eating something from all the major food groups, yes it is a little limited but toddlers are supposed to be fussy . It is probably because your eldest lo has such a varied diet that your dd2 seems to eat very little.

I would have been so delighted if my eldest had had a diet like that when she was two.

All she wanted was milk. She turned up her nose at everything.

I remember being almost in tears once because all she had eaten in a whole week (apart from milk) was a few spoons of baby cereal.

When she then condescended to eat little squares of dry toast we used to hollow them out and hide things like honey and marmite in them. She would eat them if she didn't know they were there.

If we cajoled her into tasting something and she didn't like it, we used to get covered in projectile vomit.

In the end we made sure she was having full-fat milk and topped her up with vitamins.

Over the years she's gradually extended her list of acceptable foods to what is now a balanced, if unadventurous, diet, and she seems as healthy as any other child.

I wouldn't worry too much although it is very hard not to. Two of my friends also had hunger strikers and they also seem fine now.

By the way, home-made soups are a great way of getting vegetables into fussy eaters.

Does look quite limited, but know lots worse. Does she like tomato sauces on pasta because you can hide a lot of veg in there and blend it so no recognisable lumps. You can get sausages that have leeks in them! Does she like garlic butter on bread? With the boiled eggs would she dip asparagus or green bean in (for novelty value?) If you make your own pesto you could hide some extras in it like pea puree or something.
Saw this in telegraph a week or so ago, some very strange combinations, but might be worth trying them.www.telegraph.co.uk/wine/main.jhtml?xml=/wine/2008/05/04/st_seinfeldrecipes.xml

ooh, thanks for the tips - never thought of garlic bread before or hiding things in pesto.

I guess she could be worse, I'm jsut so bored at having to think up nutritious, easy-to-cook things twice that she will agree to eat!