I do remember evaluated their diets at many points when feeling guilty or bad that they didn’t eat more and I usually always realized that in the end, what they ate - though not tons of options, balanced out pretty well (except for the chicken nuggets and corn dogs!) - pasta, plenty of milk, cheese, yogurt, raw veggies more than cooked, etc. - it wasn’t so bad.
I guess the other telling factor would be their weight and none of them were sticks but no one was overweight and even in their teen years and college, no one gained weight and all are decently fit.
My oldest ate anything as a toddler and I thought I was doing great. Then he got pickier and pickier with some serious oddities. His favorite food is chicken vindaloo. He won’t eat pasta (too slimy), lamb (too fatty), any vegetable except raw carrots and a little lettuce and tomato in a sandwich. He liked deli style chicken and turkey. He eats Life Cereal twice a day.
Younger son wasn’t nearly as picky. There are lots and lots of things he doesn’t like olives, mushrooms, cabbage, cauliflower, beets, eggplant, many shellfish though not all. (He eats broccoli, green beans, carrots and red peppers.) But he’ll try anything and won’t make it obvious if he’s eating something he doesn’t really like. He loved the food in Jordan despite not liking olives.
Oh and neither kid will touch any form of alcohol because it tastes nasty.
There’s hope even for much older eaters! My fiance grew up in a meat-and-potatoes household. He mostly stuck to that for the next 25 years, though when he was pushed to try new things (like when traveling), he often liked them and added them to his repertoire. He was in his mid-40s when we met, and he’s been trying everything I put in front of him and liking most of it. Now he loves Indian, Korean, all kinds of things.
He did draw an absolute line in the sand with broccoli and canned tuna. I backed off. But I can’t really complain about that when I’ve got him taking seconds on Brussels sprouts, curried catfish, tofu, kale, seaweed salad, etc.
His mother can’t believe what I’ve been able to get him to eat! She’s so happy to see him finally enjoying diverse foods.
“The fact that picky eating (I hate that term) is so common makes me think it’s a common facet of childhood and kids shouldn’t be pressed to change until they’re ready.”
But it isn’t common in other countries. The kind of picky eating that Americans accept as a normal part of childhood (like only eating a short list of accepted foods) is unheard of in Japan or France.
Of course kids vary in their enthusiasm for new foods, and some have sensory issues, everywhere in the world. But the fact that this is so common in the U.S. has to be something we’re teaching our kids.
My oldest son asked for ‘a nice piece of fish’ for his special birthday dinner - when he was 4. He always would try anything - when my parents took him out to eat once after grandparents day at school he ordered oysters for the first time and ate then. His sister grew up with gastritis and has naturally gone very bland to protect her tummy. She loved grits (who loves grits?), chicken, mac and cheese type stuff.
She actually called me a few weeks ago and then today to tell me the new food she liked. A few weeks ago she literally said - I just tried a new food called chicken salad - have you ever heard of it? She never would eat anything mixed with mayo. Then just today she called to have me guess the new food she liked - hummus. Both still pretty plain if you think about it, but she is branching out. She’s 18 now.
As cobrat mentions, it’s also not common in some cultures even in the US. My H met me when my older D was still young and very picky. He did not grow up in such a culture-you ate what your parents could afford, because the parents were only a few generations removed from eating whatever the masters bothered to feed their slaves. He often shook his head over her refusal to eat things.
The rule that I always had was to try 5 bites of something new. Over time she did often find things that she thought she would “hate” but actually liked. When she got to HS, it had open campus at lunch, and she had friends from many different cultures. She would go with them to get pho, or bahn mi, or ribs, or fried chicken, etc. and then got a job in a deli…soon enough she was eating things I hadn’t even tried. And suddenly she ate vegetables!
Today she works as an expediter in a restaurant and as a fill-in cook. She eats all kinds of things. Her favorite might still be boxed mac and cheese, but she eats normally now. Her brother “does battle with food” and dislikes cooking. He sure EATS enough though! My youngest isn’t much for cooking but isn’t picky and probably has the most expanded palate at her age than her siblings did.
With my oldest, she was a very happy eater from day one. She is also the biggest foodie in the pack. My middle child was difficult when she was little. By the time she was in middle school and we went out to dinner, she would order one of two things…hot wings of Caesar salad. She has changed a lot and eats just about anything. She was a vegetarian for a couple of years , but it impacted her health and now eats meat on occasion ( and doing a lot better too )
The youngest…she is a work in progress. Least likely to cook anything and least adventurous. Hoping she comes around.
Her friends are a lot worse. She has only one close friend who eats any variety of foods. One of them had never seen gravy before it was served at our dinner table . She still has never eaten a hamburger. I suspect there is an underlying issue of food control in her family because this is someone who binges in other people’s houses when there is chocolate
When my picky eater ate $50 of sushi I knew he had changed. He’s kind of funny. He will eat almost anything when we go out, but not that much at home. That may be because our rule is if you order it you need to eat it. That after another child would want to order an appetizer, not eat much, order an adult dinner, not eat much, and then order a full sized dessert. Dessert usually all got eaten. My younger son still doesn’t eat that many different foods, but he’s healthy and thin, so I’m ok with it.
Sometimes picky eaters are “supertasters” with many more taste buds than average people. As we discovered in an elementary school science experiment, our son could correctly identify 10 different ketchup brands in a blind taste test. So our pediatrician told us to stop nagging and forcing him to try different foods (after he threw up ones he didn’t like or found overwhelming) and just to let his food exploration develop at its own pace. He’s still picky at age 20, but getting better. Taste buds die and decrease in number with age, which is why many picky eaters grow out of their pickiness. Tastes aren’t as overwhelming when you have fewer taste buds reacting to them. But even at his pickiest stage, he loved sushi.
We had a rule at dinner that you had to try one bite of everything. If there was something you had already tried and disliked, you still had to try it 12 times (12 dinners), before you were let off the hook. We’d take a break and a few months later start the 12x counter over again. I had heard that some foods are acquired tastes, and you need to taste things many times to get used to them.
I don’t know if it made my kids like things any faster, but they did learn how to eat things they didn’t like politely. They appreciated the idea that it was okay not to like things (most adults avoid certain foods), but I was sometimes going to present foods they didn’t like because they are nutritious. I enjoy cooking so I admit that we ate fairly plain but healthy meals.
My husband was our picky eater. His mom didn’t make him eat anything he didn’t want to eat while he was growing up. Somewhere I have the list I made of the foods he’d eat. Sigh. Plain meat, potatoes with butter, french fries. No poultry, fish, sauces, pizza, ethnic foods. No vegetables.
It took years, but he will now eat most foods (he can’t resist duck), but still avoids red sauce, pizza, Asian or Mexican food.
Our daughters eat just about everything and turned into terrific cooks. Younger daughter was a bit picky until she started being invited to friends’ homes for meals. Our rule was if not at home, they had to eat whatever was served to them.
I think part of H’s problem lies in supertasting - he can pick out herb and spice flavors from anything and seems especially sensitive to bitter tastes.
@cassidyboulder - We followed the same strategy in our house. We called it the “no thank you bite”. You had to at least try one bite. I’d put a small amount on their plate and they could have more if they wanted. I’d always make sure there were some parts of the meal they would eat but at least they had to try everything.
We’re a family of foodies. Both my kids consider being willing to try different foods something that is a must in a significant other. They love traveling and exploring new cultures and, to them, food is very much part of that. They will put up with friends who are picky eaters (although they complain that it can limit where the gang goes to eat out - less of the funky, ethnic joints) but its a deal breaker for someone with whom they share a romantic interest.
First child (D) ate pretty much everything, but was a terrible sleeper. Second child (S) was a great sleeper but was a very picky eater. I gave up battling both of them; they wore me out. Now in their 20s, D is a night owl and finally enjoys naps. S is a great cook (he learned to cook his own meals when he was pretty young) and is not as picky as he was, although there are still some foods he doesn’t care for. He wouldn’t eat hamburgers or pizza as a child, he still won’t eat a hamburger but he likes pizza with white sauce.
I grew up with a mom who wanted a clean plate including vegetables I hated. I vowed I’d never do that to my kids.
So I had kids who didn’t eat many veggies until I discovered that if the veggies were raw rather than cooked they would gobble them up. So dinner veggies ended up presented as after school snacks and appetizers. Easier for me!
I only tried the one bite rule. Guess I’m not into food fights. I just said, okay, you don’t like it today but later on you might because your tastes change as you grow up (truth). So maybe next time. You won’t know unless you try it. Today they eat about everything including the foods they used to hate. And both are pretty good cooks who are more adventurous than me.
I was a really picky eater when young. Not because I chose to be but because my mother served very few things and no vegetables at all. I dreaded being invited to a friend’s house for dinner because I was afraid of what I would be served. When I met my husband, the worst part was being invited to his mother’s house for dinner. She served two or three kinds of vegetables, none of which I could eat and meat I had never tried before. I swore I would not let this happen to my kids.
Before I had kids, I worked at learning to like most things. Once we had the kids we served them everything right from the start. No one was ever forced, or even encouraged to eat anything. It was just offered. There was no discussion about what they could, or couldn’t eat. Most of the food in the house was healthy stuff so they were welcome to any of it and didn’t have to try a bite of anything. It was just available.
All three of mine would eat anything. And I mean anything. Their friends would be astounded at what was served and what they would eat. My middle son married a girl who was a picky eater so she asked my help in making her kids not like that. My grand kids will also eat everything.
Meals should not be a battle. Or even a discussion of what they should eat. I remember my nephew asking his mom how many bites he had to take of something. I was astounded. How would she know how hungry he was?
My ex-husband’s mother was pretty mean when it came to feeding her kids. My ex-husband was child five of six and the picky eater of the bunch. We met as teens and during family dinners, it was the joke at how they made him sit at the table for hours after the family was done with dinner, in order to teach him a lesson. I didn’t find it amusing at all…he would store a ball of food in his cheek, while in tears while the rest of the family watched TV.
So what he learned was that his mother was mean and to not try new foods.
When we got married, I was in my beginning stages of cooking and very wet behind the ears , but he * did * come around and learn to like things he feared as a child.
She tried to manipulate our children when they were babies and toddlers too. I recall her getting angry at me for making them grilled cheese sandwiches and using butter instead of margarine…the butter was saved for impressing their friends when they had lobsters.
So, since I offended her by using a couple of pats of butter, I went out and bought a lb of it to atone for my sins …
She also was from the clean your plate generation , but you would think she would have indulged her grandchildren a little bit when they visited as youngins…
In our household, everyone had to try a good-sized bite of everything that was served. If they didn’t like the dishes, that was all they had to eat and they could make themselves a peanut butter sandwich or rice or tofu or fruits. That as about it. They are pretty adventurous eaters and like nearly everything. H thought S was picky because he didn’t like eating any form of green beans. H finally asked him why and he said it made him wheeze. S took one green bean and ate it in front of H and promptly started wheezing. H never pressed him on eating beans again. S also doesn’t like things that are mushy or slimy, like eggplant or okra, but will sample them if they are served or part of the menu.
D1 was a terribly picky eater who was not open to tasting new foods by age 11 months. H used to describe her as “a vegetarian who doesn’t eat vegetables.” I finally settled on making her have a taste of what we were eating for dinner, and then if she didn’t like it, she could fix herself something else (she was in grade school) - some kind of veggie was mandatory. Over about 2-3 years of tasting the same foods over and over, she started to broaden her horizons. Ironically, she’s now the most adventurous eater in the family.
The ironic thing is that once she started eating everything, I realized that D2 was a pretty terrible eater, too – she had looked good by comparison to D1 but is even more stubborn. She was especially reluctant to eat more than a narrow range of veggies, and scarcely improved in high school. By some stroke of cosmic karma, she took a gap year and is now living with a family of vegetarians in Germany! She is way too polite to tell them about her dietary habits, and now eats all manner of things she would never have touched at home.