Are faddy eaters born or made?

fastasleep · 26/04/2006 08:54

MADE!

ScummyMummy · 26/04/2006 08:59

Mine has tendencies that way which we foolishly reinforced, I'd say.

alex8 · 26/04/2006 09:00

people who are lucky enough to have non fussy eater say they are made. They like to feel smug and think its all their own work.

But as a mother of a fussy eater who was given mostly home cooked food, ate the same as us and ate every fruit and veg until 15 months and then turned against most of the veg, I would have to say born. I dontl offer him alternatives and I keep offering himthings he doesn't like and I thaks god for my food recyling box.

I predict at least 10 posts on here about how their fantastic parenting skills, organic home cooked food etc etc have made their chidren the best eaters ever.

Cna you tell this subject drives me mad!

Bozza · 26/04/2006 09:06

alex8 - I truly see where you are coming from but you can not honestly say that there aren't lots of cases like scummy's, can you? It's really just another take on the old nature v nurture debate. I think most fussy eaters are partially made and partially born - somewhere on a continuum. Sounds like you would place your DS at the mostly born end of the scale.

My kids are not fussy but things like seasonal fruit take some reintroducing. Started with strawberries and DS (5) remembers that he liked them last year but DD (1) wouldn't eat them at first. I gave them with ice cream and now she will have them on their own.

expatinscotland · 26/04/2006 09:07

Born. I morphed into a foodie in my 30s. As a child, I was the fussiest, pickiest eater going.

Original poster

Karmamother · 26/04/2006 09:08

Well..... the reason I ask is I have BF both my children & have just started weaning the youngest. My DP's children to his ex-wife are both incredibly fussy eaters. The eldest (now 14) only eats white bread, chicken, pizza, burgers. Full stop. The younger one eats a bit more but hardly any fruit or veg. He does give them far too many sweets IMO, but I'll save that for another thread.
Anyway, at the risk of sounding smug, my eldest eats a fair amount of fruit & veg & even eats the green stuff! I'm hoping our DD will grow up eating a wide range of healthy food rather than like his kids.
Also, his 2 weren't BF which I understand may help kids be exposed to different tastes.
What do you think?

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Feistybird · 26/04/2006 09:10

I don't think the BF thing figures at all. My DD1 wasn't BF and will eat virtually anything put in front of her. DD2 who was BF still eats fairly well, but is nowhere near as adventurous with food as her big sis.

alex8 · 26/04/2006 09:11

I'm sure some of them are but to those of us who have done exactly the same as the mother of non fussy eaters it gets really annoying. and sorry if this sounds rude but stories like your strawberry one never helps. I do that sort of thing all the time.

alex8 · 26/04/2006 09:12

my son was breast fed for a year. So not a great theory.

ScummyMummy · 26/04/2006 09:14

Hurrah for lifelong learning, eh, expat?:) Only 23 years or so to go till my boy morphs into a foodie!

hunkermunkfish · 26/04/2006 09:17

My DS1 is v fussy - he does eat healthily, but will not countenance fresh fruit or raw veggies (except bananas). I have to be cunning Anything green is a no-no. He was scared of grass last year and is still scared of leaves this year, so there's no way in hell I'd get him to eat salad.

He also doesn't respond to "peer pressure" - anyone who tries "Ohh, look how gorgeous this thing is that I'm eating, ohhh, DS1, would you like to try it?" gets met with a very polite "no".

But I was v fussy so I am possibly more understanding. I am far better now, much like EIS!

And I think that children who'll eat anything have no sense of taste.

bogwobbit · 26/04/2006 09:17

I would say born - but there's probably quite a lot parents can do to stop / improve fussiness. Unfortunately I didn't manage it with ds :( and am suffering for it now.
Nice to know that there chance he might improve in adulthood though - if I survive long enough to see it.

Bozza · 26/04/2006 09:27

Sorry alex8 the strawberry story wasn't meant to be helpful. You made it quite clear in your first post that you had tried all these things and I am guessing that most people who post on here will have with bitter experience. I was just pointing out that a) I could have decided that DD didn't like them, not offered them again, and reinforced her rejection, thus helping to create a fussy eater and that b) IME it is an example of how children often react to "new" food.

I still stand by my original post. And although I have tried not to ,I think I have occasionally reinforced the kid's tendencies to dislike things - when they have been poorly, for instance.

blueshoes · 26/04/2006 09:32

I tend to agree with alex8. dd will eat what she will eat when she will eat it. She eats greens occasionally, won't touch fruit. Dislikes pudding. Prefers savoury, unfortunately of the less healthy kind.

She was bf-ed for 17 months. I ate all manner of food during that time. We cook all our meals from scratch and eat a wide variety. But dd is still what she is.

If anything, I believe if you make food an issue (ie starving, standing over them and forcing them to eat), you can end up making children more fussy about food. dd will be more adventurous when she gets older. In the meantime, we offer healthy food from time to time and never make a fuss if she flat out refuses.

Original poster

Karmamother · 26/04/2006 09:54

Blueshoes, I agree with your post that forcing them to eat probably leads to food-related problems & I wonder if that's why DPs eldest just eats crap & the next one eats a bit more. Maybe he learnt to relax a bit.

It's also very true that what they eat today will surely be rejected tomorrow. They do it because they can!

I'm not saying that BFing makes children better eaters, per se. But the wealth of research says it may help. Obviously you're going to get examples of the opposite wherever you go.

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KTeePee · 26/04/2006 10:03

I was an incredibly fussy eater as a child but don't consider myself to be one now BUT a lot of the things I didn't like as a child I still don't like - slabs of chewy meat (like steak, chops, boiled bacon), overdone veg, bland food served without sauce or gravy, etc

One of the reasons I eat well now is that the choice of food in shops and restaurants is so much better and not the boring meat and two veg of my childhood. My eating improved when I left home and shared a house with friends and got to try different things (plus was probably hungrier!)

Not being nasty, but I don't think my mother's cooking skills were not up to much plus she had to cater for elderly relatives who were conservative in their tastes.

I would never try to force a child to eat something they didn't like as I can remember feeling physically sick as I tried to eat certain things as a child but I do think many children are neophobes - we have finally got ds1 to start trying more things and he has surprised himself by finding that he actually likes some of them!

Tommy · 26/04/2006 10:09

I think it's prabably a mixture of the two. DS1 was weaned onto all sorts of things and ate them all. Now he is incredibly fussy and, like alex8 doesn't respond to all the ideas that every book and magazine article (and posts on here!) suggest. DS2, for the first 18 months or so of eating would eat piles of anything I offered - he's now learned to be more fussy (from his big brother) but does respond a bit better to the cajoling and peer pressure stuff.
I was very fussy as a child and now I'm not at all. These children don't have much power except when it comes to eating ao I reckon a lot of it is that.

Original poster

Karmamother · 26/04/2006 10:17

Kteepee, I remember feeling utterly miserable as a child, being forced to eat my mince. My mother was a boring cook & also in the 70's there waesn't the variety we have now. I certainly won't be forcing my kids to eat somethig they don't like. However, it does piss me off when they refuse a food they've previously eaten & enjoyed. Then I do cajole them quite a bit.

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Original poster

Karmamother · 26/04/2006 10:18

Don't know why I'm saying "they" the youngest is only 5 months!

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zippitippitoes · 26/04/2006 10:22

born..dd1 was fussy from birth but now eats anything and has done since about 4 she is 22
dd2 ate anything offered from the start
ds extremely faddy and still is now 18

KTeePee · 26/04/2006 10:26

Karma that annoys me too. Sometimes I think why don't I just cook sausages/fish fingers/chicken nuggets and pasta every day, at least they would eat that (though dd doesn't like the ff's of course!)

alex8 · 26/04/2006 10:30

I hate that too, I get all excited that he likes something healthy and then the the next time he doesn;t touch it. The other annoying thing with my son is that he does eat stuff that others dislike, like olives and prunes. In the last 2 weeks he has started saying he doesn't like sauce with his pasta. And thats where I hide the veg! I have just ignored him though. I do worry about his vitamins and minerals. I wasn;t sure about trying supplements.

lazycow · 26/04/2006 10:36

Can I just say a word for fussy eaters

I was not a fussy eater at all, my younger sister was much fussier. It all started when she was too lazy to breastfeed (unlike me - I was a little guzzler). My mother ended up cup feeding her for ages as she wouldn't such a bottle either.

Now I have a weight problem (I've always loved food and got fat at around 9 years old). My younger sister got much less fussy as she got older but still had strong preferrences. Until she died 5 years ago never had a weight problem and was always enviably slim yet had relatively few hang-ups about her weight/size in the way most women large or slim seem to have nowadays. She ate laods when she liked it. If she didn't like it she just ate a bit.

My mum is and was a fantastic cook so you can't blame her cooking - just that my sister had stronger preferences. In my opinion being fussy about food is not always a negative thing. Like everything it is about balance. Obviously eating only fish fingers/white bread etc is not great but having strong preferences and not eating much when it is something you don't like strikes me as very sensible and likely to set up better eating habits in the long term.

Bugsy2 · 26/04/2006 10:39

I have sweated buckets and used all sorts of different parenting techniques to get DS (now 6) to eat vegetables & I've done it. Long hard slog, but by gentle persistance - combined with periods of leaving it completely - subtle hiding techniques - never making it become a big issue - forbidding well-meaning people from trying to force it etc etc, I have managed to get ds to eat a normal range of vegetables.
Maybe that will give hope to some of you still struggling on this one.
Left to his own devices, he would eat nothing but meat & cake. Very long, tough slog - but so worth it.

GDG · 26/04/2006 10:40

Born.

But I think you can have some influence too.

Ds1 very fussy, same as me, I'm still very fussy eater.
Ds2 was great as baby, went through fussy phase, now coming out of it.
Ds3 is 19 months now and wolf anything down - will try any new food you put in front of him no problem - total opposite to ds1 yet all been fed, weaned, treated exactly the same way.

When I say you can have influence - ds1 is fussy but rather than just sticking to what I know he'll eat, I put lots of other things in front of him too and bit by bit he's adding new things to his diet. School is helping as he'll eat what his friends do.