Why do people harp on and on and on about instilling the sort of eating habits in their kids that they would never dream of maintaining themselves???

[moondog]

You know, being genuinely amazed that a 2 year old won't ingest his own bodyweight in cucumber and carrot batons?

To say nothing of the teachers who blindly endorse 'healthy eating' then waddle to the stafffroom and get in a fight with a packet of Hobnobs.

Oh and so bloody what if your kid only eats about 5 or 6 different things. Don't we all??? Anyway, whatever you eat, it's a variation on theme of protein, fat and carbohydrate.

So, start banging on about it/forcing them to eat/making smiley pizzas/buying ridiculous cookbooks and just leave them be

Alwayslooking - we often have to do it in my house because we are not all ready to eat at the same time (DD is 2.8 so she's off to bed before DH and I are ready for our tea some days). When she's older, we will definitely all be eating the same thing, we do at the weekends.

moondog - I agree that they should never be forced to eat something they don't want or to clear their plates if they have had enough, but your OP came over that we shouldn't bother trying to introduce different foods at all ("so bloody what if your kid only eats about 5 or 6 different things").

The fact is that unless you introduce a range of foods to them at an early age, how are they ever going to know whether they like it or not?

no makes sod all difference - 3 children, all fed the same, 1 fussy almost from the start of weaning (although does eat better now), 1 eats like a horse, 1 eats very little and very often.

I used to be fed a wonderful range of well cooked, home made food as a child - but I still went through a fussy stage when I refused to eat just about anything other than cheese salad in the summer - and mince and onion pies in the winter (went on for about 2yrs)

always... I have a great recipe for liver if you want it. It's a fantastic source of iron, a deficiency in it can cause tiredness, slow development and frequent colds and infections.

There was a survey done actually that found somehting like 1 in 8 toddlers are anaemic

mighttosh - I didn't know I liked Lobster until last year when I was 29.

When family life was normal here, we would frequently eat at different times - plate covered with tin foil and a quick zap in the microwave - we all ate the same meal that I'd cooked.

(just for clarity, I encourage my DCs to be aware when they feel satisfied, not encourage them to clear their plates)

no thanks - I can't stand liver, my children will have to wait until they leave home (or get offered it elsewhere) to find out if they like it.

always - to be fair, lobster is not really part of a staple diet

But I'd be worried if my DD didn't ever get to try a tomato because the first time I gave it her she refused it and then I just gave up, assuming that she knew best, and then she didn't eventually try one until she was 29...

I once met someone who had never had an egg! He was about 29, too. Said it was just because they didn't have eggs in his house when he was a kid

i find the fussines changes once they start visiting friends houses for tea....am sure fusiness is a form of control over the parent. they aren't fussy in other peoples homes,and eat all thats put in front of them!

well Lobster was the first thing that came into my tired frazzled brain. I'm sure there's been other stuff too.

Never tried Greek salad or Feta cheese until I was an adult either, or olives,

Completely agree Moondog.

I was a very fussy eater as a child and my mother was obsessed with it. It completely ruined mealtimes for the entire family because they would always end in tears as I sat there being forced to swallow mushrooms even as I was retching As I've got older I've expanded my diet hugely - just by being left alone to discover my own tastes. As an adult, I've realised that everyone else in my family is actually as fussy as I am - my parents will refuse to even try some foods that I eat regularly. It has left me with a really unhealthy relationship with food though, which is something I don't want to pass onto DD.

me neither always, which is why greek salad wouldn't be my first choice over, say, a McDonalds. I've only improved my eating habits because of my children

You should never make food an issue we always have fruit and we always have chocolate in. Some weeks I will be in the mood to cook and we will have homecooked meals and other weeks it will be fruits of the freezer .

I have 6dc and my dd will not eat tuna and my ds is a bananaphobe. They will happily eat everything else.

sorry you've totally missed my point there - there are plenty of other "healthy" meals I would have automatically chosen (before discovering greek salad and feta cheese - which I like, and olives - that I don't) other than junk food.

I think the point that MP is trying to make is there's no point trying to force healthy food (and ban the other stuff)on your children if you are eating crap

If you as an adult only have a small range of healthy foods that you eat - just feed them to your children. they're not going to die if you don't give them the full range of stuff available in the supermarket these days.They will one day be able to expand their own taste buds, and most will when they're older and free to cook their own healthy food, and find there's more stuff out there than they'd eaten as a child.

liver should be against the law

i would have a greek salad over a mcdoonalds anyday

I try to instill good eating habits in my children because mine are really bad. (And I hide that fact from them, as I do from everyone else).

I don't agree with the smiley face pizzas or "hidden vegetables" malarkey, though - I think that approach implicitly treats eating vegetables as something to be avoided rather than something which can be enjoyed.

I've not... my diet is no where near as good as my children's. Thats my choice, and when they are old enough they can make their own choices about what they eat, but whilst it's down to me what they eat I want to ensure they get the best start. Hopefully though with the vaired diet they have now, their palates will be more developed than mine and so will their understanding of food.

I agree that the "hidden" vegetables malarky is crazy. Vegetables are not to be feared! They're a normal part of the diet!

I didn't eat any form of fish (save tinned tuna) for years. The times I was made to try it, I did actually like it, but it was such a huge issue and if I did eat it I would get so many comments, I decided not to eat it at all and carried on pretending to hate it. There are some fish that I still don't eat (mostly really fishy things like mackerel), but for the rest, I eat it pretty much all the time. I only started after I left home and could explore my taste in fish without fearing lots of comments.

Just so I'm clear though - my children aren't forced to eat anything they don't like my DS1 has now decided he doesn't like raw tomatoes, I don't force him to eat them, I offer them every now and again to see if he wants to try again. He eats them unknowingly when there in his dinner though (lasagne etc)

ok some may have a problem with expanding their palate as adults, but it's certainly not universal.

FIL had a whole range of foods he's never eaten in his life when he stayed with here recently, the same sort of stuff that DH and his SIL's (and their respective families) "discovred" on moving to the UK.

Many foods they'd never even heard of let alone seen or eaten.

You said you were fed on a limited, and not particularly healthy, diet as a child. What I am saying is that you show your children home cooking and healthy food at home they're more likely to want to try new stuff when they're older.

I'm sure going from not great diet to healthy really broad diet is much harder than to go from "restricted" healthy diet to broader healthy diet - there's so much more choice.

Being exposed to a range of foods is one thing, but you really can't make them like everything. Some children are naturally adventurous, others are suspicious. I have one food-lover, one fusspot and one between the two.

Eating habits aren't set in stone in toddlerhood, anyway. Plenty of faddy children grow into adventurous adults, particularly if they grow up seeing adults eating and enjoying a wide range of foods.

My dd is completely unfussy at school - sample from the menu this week: filet de poisson avec riz, pasta with turkey and brocolli, carbonnade of beef with salad, chicken chasseur. I have the menu, hear what she likes and try to replicate it - but she won't eat the same thing at home! It might be a question of presentation or my cooking

I think a lot of it is down to dh and I eating later, and her mostly having a snack after school, and i hope to change this as she gets older. In the meantime it is a bit of trial and error - to her grated cheese should be emmenthal, not cheddar. Yoghurts are plain (with a bit of sugar or honey sprinkled). I recently discovered that she loves mushroom soup! Her palate is definitely developing in the Belgian fashion - and we still like a nice shepherds pie, spag bol and hot curry!

PS - I don't fret about it! I give her plenty of fruit and she is healthy and normal weight. Annabel Karmel has barely had a look in

Just having this conversation with a friend, her DD has just started school and WILL NOT EAT fruit, never has, gags, throws up etc

So she had the museli bar her mum gave her taken off her everyday and the head has said she can have either a piece of fruit or a dry cracker. No alternative at all. Not a banana muffin, not cheese, not anything on the cracker, not roasted parsnips (because that is processing them )

she is 4 fgs