Are faddy eaters born or made?

[Karmamother]

Discuss.

2 mothers discussing their sons' eating habits at dd2's birthday party:
mum 1: when he refuses all his dinner, surely you give him a yoghurt?
mum 2: no
mum 1: never?
mum 2: no, and he soon realises who's in charge...

I think 'born'.

DD and DS have been fed the same sort of stuff since they were little. (Mostly home made with the odd jar here and there.)

DD - v. fussy
DS - eats everything!!!

Mind you, I think DD is bad and then her friends come over for tea!!!!!!

I too had a child who at the age of 2-5 ate little, tablespoons of food at a time. I DO know how stressful it was.
And yes, he was underweight and under the care of a dietian. He even had supplements.
As I had other children to feed ( with the opposite problem) I stuck to three meals a day with hidden supplements, and healthy high calorie snacks for the twig child.

Our son is still underweight at 10yrs a common problem for a multpile allergic child, however his calorie intake is very high, his meals varied and interesting. His energy levels are good, and he is sports mad.
He eats double the amount of his younger sister, who is 7, and is as tall has him and weighs double his weight.
There will always be an underlying fear of food for our twig lad, and I was aware that would happen as he grows older. In some ways it's there to save his life, but both of us have worked hard as parents to push the positive side of food.

I dont do the organic stuff, I cant afford it, its as unenvironmental as ordinary stuff, and is = in terms of nutrients. I believe an apple is an apple. and none of that peel it stuff either, have never peeled a grape for a child. Just wash it and give it to them.

the phrase 'peel me a grape mummy' just doesnt happen in my house, thank goodness!!!

Mnet regulars have probably read this from me a dozen times, but DD2 spent her first year in a Cambodian orphanage where she was mildly malnourished. When she first came home she ate absolutely anything and everything and would go on eating until we stopped feeding her or she thew up. Over the next few months she gradually learnt that the supply of food was inexhaustible and became, if not, fussy then much more discriminating. Interestingly now she is a much less enthusiastic eater than DD1 and much more likely to reject food, even though she knows that there is no alternative. So maybe DD2 was born fussy, but for the that first year circumstances made her very unfussy.

"..Mind you, I think DD is bad and then her friends come over for tea!!!!!! ..."

Ah yes.... the fussy friends phenomenon. I ask one child's parent at school if there is anything they don't eat when he came over for tea - "No, he's not fussy really...doesn't like tomatoes (so that rules out homemade pasta sauce then)..or sausages (OK..no sausies and chips)...or minced beef (cottage pie and bolognaise a no-no then)and he doesn't really eat many veg..or fruit..." OK... as you say not fussy at all then...
.

DD had a picnic for her party on Saturday (only 3 friends invited as we couldn't transport more) - as it was a party I decided to get stuff that kids love so there would be no hassle. Hot dogs (only my children and 1 other ate them - one ate the roll with tomato sauce, one ate just the sausage. I had cubes of cheddar - none of them liked that. Sausage rolls - yuck! Fruit...not touched. Pringles - one of them didn't even like those (I thought everyone liked them!!). The party rings were OK though. And as for my lovingly prepared and iced chocolate birthday cake - 2 refused point blank and one told me that she only ate the icing 'cos the cake tasted horrid!! . I had to break my diet to taste it after that...and it was luverly...

Blood pressure sky high at this point!! But at least I appreciated my children more afterwards .

What is the definition of "fussy" though. Most of our children are never, ever really hungry. All of them are well fed (although not always nourished!) and I honestly believe it is easy to be picky when you are not actually that hungry.
When an infant first starts to reject food tastes & textures, alot of parents panic & think "Oh my God, they've got to eat something", which I did & I know loads of other parents who've done the exact same thing & slowly you get caught in a web of infant-controlled food intake. Is it at this point we catagorise the infant as "fussy"?
As they then get older, the toddler starts refusing to eat food, throwing big tantrums about certain types of food and so it goes on.
I have to say that I honestly believed that if you only had certain foodstuffs available to you, then your child would have to eat them because there would be no other option & they would get sufficiently hungry to get stuck in. This is what I kept saying to myself when DS was controlling his intake of food by refusing 90% of the food I would give him. My approach was not to be bullied by my 2 yr old into only giving him the food he would eat but to use 100 different methods to get him to eat a wide range of healthy food that we are so lucky to have available to us. It has taken me 4 yrs to achieve this, but he now eats a reasonable range of food & most importantly, for me & for his future, will agree to try different foods & have them on his plate.
Therefore my conclusion to this is, that picky eaters probably only tend to exist in societies where we have an unlimited choice of food items.

I still think it has a lot to do with personality:

ds1 (the fussy one) is a cautious child who likes to stick to what he knows, for example he was very reluctant to try many of rides in the Magic Kingdom, whereas ds2 (then aged 3) was madly keen to go on everything he could.

Ds1 wouldn't learn to ride his bike until this yr (aged 6), but ds2 is mad keen to get the stablisers off now and he's 4.

Their attitude to food is entirely different:

Ds1 looks at food before he eats it - he picks it up and examines it closely, any alien specks of broccoli on the carrot are removed, any herbs are wiped off the edge of the roast chicken, any bits of skin picked off fruit etc etc

Ds2 just grabs it and shovels it down, usually dipping it in the gravy first.

ds1 eats slowly and indifferently, ds2 enjoys his food, eats quickly and asks to try new things ( e.g. gherkins)

I agree with you absolutely Iota that it is to do with personality. My DD will eat almost anything, never questions what I give her & has never gone through the rejection & absolute refusal thing that DS did.
However, I think they can only be fussy/picky because we are able to provide them with the choice to be fussy or picky. If that makes sense!

Because ds1 is fussy I do tend to stick with what I know he will eat - I guess that I'm reinforcing his pickyness, but on the other hand it does mean that I know he is getting a balanced diet.

E.G. if we have roast chicken on Sunday, I know ds1 will eat all of it bar the gravy, if we have beef or lamb, he won't eat the meat but will just eat the veg and potato - so I cook him a chicken breast as well in order to give him some protein.

If I didn't cook the chicken, he would simply not eat the meat on offer but fill up on the potato and veg - and this principle applies to any other meal - he just eats the bits he likes and it would worry me that he wasn't getting a balanced diet.

i remember things tasting differently as a child. blueberries were like a mouthful of grit because of the seeds, pears were very prickly on my tongue, like razorblades! I love both now, but i do think biology has alot to do with how we experience food. My son is fussy and like tortoiseshells, he hates the smell of things. He will gag if a banana is too close to him. We have proper food, he truly just doesn't like it. I don't want to make it a huge deal, but we have talked about how its not fair if his body can't have the vitamins just because his mouth doesn't like it (he's 6) i just hope that his tastebuds will change and he will eventually like more foods

made made made made made made made MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMAAAAAAAAAAAAADE.

STICK EM IN A DESERT then lets see who doesnt like their beans touching their sausages ffs!

which is DIFFERENT from sating - i dont like a particular food - so lets make that clear - everyone doesnt like something - thats different from using food as power play to get attention. IMO it makes the parent a mug

I guess if ds1 was in a desert he would spend a lot of time picking the sand off his carrots instead of broccoli specks

williamsmummy the thing is I and several people on here have fussy eaters and do not do any of the things that you blame fussy eating on.

Oh how wonderfully reassuring to read all this. As a paranoid mum desperately trying to get her crafty, manipulative 3 yr old to eat a balanced diet I now feel vindicated! I'd say born & then potentially reinforced due to time or frustration. I do all the textbook stuff, much mentioned above, have the wonderful luxury of a fabulous cook, buy top quality organic produce from local shops, always eat meals together etc etc! - but will he eat vegetables - my arse will he! If we hide a single pea inside a fishcake (yes we are that sad that we have tried), he will sense it & spit it out! I have stopped worrying on the basis that apparently their tastebuds now pick up veg as being bitter at this age!

stop all this 'hiding' the bloody veg, ignore any of the fussy behaviour . Unless your child has aspbergers or autism, I would ignore the requests for non touching food/ or this colour thing. Always give without comment a meal with small amounts of all veg. If they dont eat it, remove after eating.
( which is another thing? who told the children that they dont eat green veg? who gave them that idea? any adult who says that within a childs hearing needs a swift hard stamp on their foot, if not a poke in the eye)
No bribes, no begging, pleading or standing wringing hands next them running through your whole larder menu.
i hate the lets make food in to a smiley face rubbish. Who has the energy to do that every meal?
and lets face it, seen one food smiley face , you have seen it all. The interest soon pales.
Before you know it , you will be using food like lego , making trains, buildings and rockets, with peas and sweetcorn flying around. All balanced on a kiddie plastic plate.
In the blink of an eye you will be entertaining them juggling balls and trying to sneak a extra mouthful in.

SOOOOOO

Sit down with your plate in front of you and ignore complaints and make conversation about anything other than food!!
or
Get your children cooking, rather than nagging about food.
HOW you respond makes this issues permanant.
When a two year old demands a certain cup, why do you give in to that demand every time?( if the cup is in the dishwasher or you arent at home dont do it) a clear,' if your thirsty , here is your drink on the table' will do.

Life is stressful enough with finding the money to buy the food , and finding the energy to shop, ( read every single bloody label in our case ) and then drag the stuff home and unload it, and cook, and wash up the mess. Keep one part easy, either eat it or not. Believe me, my children are not dead from dehydration or starving.

williamsmummy do you not beleive that some children choose a restricted diet and however "normally" you treat meals and food they still only eat food that they wish to eat?

Faddy eaters? Yes, it's great if your darlings will eat a wide variety of foods with enjoyment and it gives you endless opportunities to preen, but does it actually matter if they won't? A friend of mine is slogging through life at the moment. Her DH (mid-40s) has both primary and secondary cancer of the throat and neck. He has had more chemotherapy and radiotherapy than any human can bear and the prognosis is still rather dodgy. Her DD2 (5) is a faddy eater and when they came round for lunch a few weeks ago my friend became quite exercised about her daughter's refusal to eat the chicken and potatoes I'd served. I wanted to put my arms around her and just tell her that it didn't really matter and to let it go. Surely provided her DD is reasonably well-nourished and eating from all the food groups, does it really matter if her diet is restricted to just a few of her favourite foods? Clearly it's not ideal, but isn't it likely to be a phase that will pass without long term adverse effects?

BTW my darlings do eat a wide variety of foods (from smoked salmon to olives to asparagus) and I preen like hell!

i have to say i'm with you williamsmummy. ds gets food. if he deson't want it he doesn't eat it, if he does he does.

no alternatives (just after i'd started weaning i found myself doing the whole, don't want this? have that. that no good? what about this then? and running myself ragged. is all a pile of poo.

just eat what's given or go hungry. and he never does go hungry. and his 'likes' seem to be largely lead by how hungry he is!!!!

sometimes it's assumed that faddy eaters eat only "children's" food but that isn't necessarily the case. Ds will happily eat stilton, mussels or parma ham but not strawberries, peas or baked beans for example.

I'll try again as you didn't see this last time.

williamsmummy the thing is I and several people on here have fussy eaters and do not do any of the things that you blame fussy eating on.

I don't do any of the things that you are complaing of and do all the things you say work for you. I never offer alternatives, he helps me cook and shop. I offer a wide range of food. etc etc.

But as its easier for you to believe everyone with a fussy eater does the things of which you disapprove, carry on

also dd1 was difficult from birth but by age 4 I had by persistent methods got her eating and dd2 was ok from the start, ds however did not respond to any amount of ignoring, offering, cooking, shopping, staying with friends, school etc and he hasn't changed..although i have always been a "foodie" person we never had junk food when the children were small or only occasionally. It is a fact that children are different. I don't really like introducing children who live where there is little food into the discussion but I beleive that it is possible that children do refuse food even when their lives depend on it.

my ds was obviously born a faddy eater[has mild asd] and from 6 months old was refusing certain foods and even when doing the normal trick of waiting a week etc and trying again that was it, so he never ate meat or lots of things and now has a severely restricted diet and then along came my dd who loves everything and anything apart from mashed potato and any other mushed up food like that..will try most adult taste foods and adores fish in all types inc calamari.mussels/ etc olives but has started to cotton on to ds s eating habits and has been trying to copy them, especially getting messed up which def didnt bother her so a lot is learned behaviour now and we just stick to our guns and say this is what there is but shes usually given a choice of two things which we know she likes anyway but we dont want her starting to be fussy and hope this phase will pass when she realises how much yummy food shes missing!

williamsmummy re your comment "Unless your child has aspbergers or autism, I would ignore the requests for non touching food/ or this colour thing"

I posted that ds1 won't eat food that is contaminated by another food - so he picks the specks of broccoli off his carrots - if baked bean juice has touched a chip he just doesn't eat that chip - he eats the other ones though, just leaves the contaminated ones.

So I can put stuff on his plate but he simply won't touch the bit he doesn't want to eat - he will eat some of the meal, but not all of it. So he's never going to be starved into submission.

If I give him veg that he likes he likes he eats it, if I don't he doesn't - same applies to meat and carbs. If he doesn't like any of his dinner, he just doesn't eat - waits until breakfast ad fills up then.