I actually agree that there’s a problem with diet and nutrition (whether for children or for adults) in the west, and largely led by the US.
When the western diet is exported to other countries, health issues (like t2 diabetes) often follow.
There are also other cultural practices that get eschewed based on western “research” and create unanticipated problems — for example nut allergies caused by a lack of any exposure in infancy, vs in other cultures where minute exposure is started soon after birth, which as it turns out prevents severe allergies later.
But everything is more nuanced than a blanket blame statement.
Why blame the US vs. the places who blindly import their “not best” practices.
.———
As an aside,
“no studies compare the prevalence of picky eating in childhood worldwide”
Good points. I’ve noticed how the younger gens have veered away from many standbys of my upbringing. They’ll eat mashed potatoes, but gravy is gross. Liver and onions, you kiddin’ me?
Certain things that were normal to many of us are now abhorred. Same gap existed between my parents and my brother and me.
Just natural. BUT, unlike my parents upbringing, I was from the age when kids were being heavily courted by big food, and their unhealthy products. Gotta have Frosted Flakes if yer gonna show 'em yer a tiger.
True that! Even in the spoiled USA, when I was young we couldn’t afford a different meal for everyone in the fam, even if mom was willing to cook it all.
A good read. Particularly interesting for me in that I was labeled “picky” as a child because I would NOT eat breakfast cereal or many other processed foods geared at kids (but would happily eat most “adult” foods). I prefer to think of it as having been born with a refined palate!
I know picky and traumatized eaters are not the same.
Several times, people who do not know his history have asked him why he is a picky eater. And more than several times, people who do not know his history have asked me why I failed to provide him with a variety of foods when he was a toddler. He was adopted at age 7.
my wife and I were raised in ‘reasonable’ households. it went like this:
this is dinner. if you don’t like it, don’t eat it. just go hungry…
with our own three we took the tactic of ‘you don’t have to eat it, but do have a taste!’
and we never fixed them anything special or ‘after’ to make up for it.
*special - well, I was fond of created pancakes on-glass reverse art ‘edibles’ for the kids - one was into four-wheelers, one into rabbits - our oldest liked pancakes ala her (-9 yrs) sister . . .
as they hit 30, I was getting regular calls: "heh Dad, how did you make . . . "
…all that stuff they yukked at . . .
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ChristinaM
(Hungry in Asheville, NC (still plenty to offer tourists post Hurricane))
132
They neglect to see him as his own person with his own autonomy, preferences, and history. It must be the parents to “blame.”
It’s cute how people who don’t have children are always the most full of parenting expertise versus those with lived experience.
“Expectation” should be included in understanding kids’ willingness to experiment. Because the grandkids eat at our house on special occasions (holidays and sleepovers), they have unusual expectations for food here. D-I-L and their au pairs all cook good basic and healthful food. I often send over a dish and when it is something new, D-I_L tells them “Ama made this” and they dig in, giving it benefit of the doubt while either D-I_L or au pair might have presented the same dish and faced reticence. Not fair, but human nature.
As a mom to a young kid (9.5-ish), I’ve been following this thread with some amusement. We learned a long time ago (5 years ago?) to let it go and not get uptight about his eating preferences. He’s had exposure to all sorts of food in utero and thereafter. He’s viable, we’re keeping him alive, his pediatrician is not worried, and we 3 are happy. I was a “picky” skinny Korean kid. I think I turned out ok.
This thread has gone in so many directions. Perhaps my initial post using the word “irresolvable” was prescient.
It seems plain that there are several paths to being particular about foods and when it happens in life. My own interest has nothing to do with judging, but just understanding. I have a brother-in-law who absolutely refuses cooked green peas. I have an adult friend that refuses much more. Children are a whole other world. I just wonder how that happens.
I know a 24 year old guy who refuses to eat vegetables, salads, will only eat fruit if it’s in a pastry. That’s ZERO vegetables, says he doesn’t like the taste. Of course, constipation issues. He’ll eat pizza, sweets, burgers.
This study, " Picky eating in children: causes and consequences" says " picky eating is not synonymous with ARFID…" and has "a particular focus on data from the UK Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)(4), which is one of the most comprehensive sources of longitudinal data on the causes and consequences of picky eating,… "
There’s lots of words, so it won’t be of interest to everyone.
