you only get MORE of what you put up with... usually in spades.
Posted on 10/11/2007 3:59:30 PM PDT by 68skylark
A WEEK’S worth of dinners for young Fiona Jacobson looks like this: Noodles. Noodles. Noodles. Noodles. French fries. Noodles. On the seventh day, the 5-year-old from Forest Hills, Queens, might indulge in a piece of pizza crust, with no sauce or cheese.
Over in New Jersey, the Bakers changed their November family vacation to accommodate Sasha, an 11-year-old so averse to fruits and vegetables that the smell of orange juice once made him faint. Instead of flying to Prague, Sasha’s parents decided to go to Barcelona, where they hope the food will be more to his liking.
And at the Useloff household, young Ethan’s tastes are so narrow that their home in Westfield, N.J., works something like a diner.
“I do the terrible mommy thing and make everyone separate dinners,” Jennifer Useloff said.
All three families share a common problem. Their children are not only picky eaters, prone to reject foods they once seemed to love, but they are also neophobic, which means they fear new food.
But for parents who worry that their children will never eat anything but chocolate milk, Gummi vitamins and the occasional grape, a new study offers some relief. Researchers examined the eating habits of 5,390 pairs of twins between 8 and 11 years old and found children’s aversions to trying new foods are mostly inherited.
The message to parents: It’s not your cooking, it’s your genes.
The study, led by Dr. Lucy Cooke of the department of epidemiology and public health at University College London, was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in August. Dr. Cooke and others in the field believe it is the first to use a standard scale to investigate the contribution of genetics and environment to childhood neophobia.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I do know that I’ve become less picky of an eater as I’ve gotten older. I can only surmise I’m in the minority in that regard.
BUMP
hmm I’d say “if you don’t like it, you won’t have anything else to eat”
I have reasons of my own for interests in this topic too. I personally believe that different people have different sensitivities of taste and smell.
Somehow I just knew that this article would turn into a plug for Jessica Seinfeld’s new book.
I don’t have kids, but I have a dog. Believe me, if he gets hungry enough, he’ll eat his dogfood if he knows that begging for “people food” won’t work. I was a picky eater when I was a child. I’d eat RAW fruits and vegetables, but wouldn’t touch them if they were cooked.(except for potatoes and corn)
I’m with you... my favorite thing to go out and eat is something I never tried before
One of the author's main arguments in this article is that kids will most likely grow out of it over time. I don't know if other agree with that -- it seems like you're saying that's been your experience.
I've often wondered about eating disorders in adolescents -- especially girls. It's a serious disorder with a high mortality (20% mortality, last I heard). I just wonder if that kind of disorder is related to being a picky eater as a young kid -- or are the two phenomenons basically separate?
She is right this is a terrible thing. I watched a sister-in-law do this, and I never allowed my children to get away with setting the menu or putting extra requirements on the person preparing the meal. Eat what is in front of you, or don't eat.
Quit spoiling our children and we will solve some of the world's ills.
I consider myself fairly finicky. I’m not big on cooked vegetables (they get kinda mushy), and prefer fruit juice to actual fruit. I’m fine with raw vegetables, any starches, fruit juice and vegetable juice. I don’t care for bananas, apples, tomoatoes or corn. I like most cheese and dairy.
I’ll eat pretty much any meat - beef, chicken, pork, bacon, bison, turkey, fish, ham, venison, veal, crawfish, lobster, frog, snake, alligator, ostrich, emu, quail, pheasant, hot dogs, bologna, SPAM ... hell, I’d eat exotic animals if I could find somewhere that serves them (anybody know where I can get a Bengal Burger?). Slap it on the grill, medium rare ... or batter it and fry it.
Except ... I don’t care for bi-valves (clams, mussels, oysters) and squid or octopus ... slimy is not a good quality in a meat.
I like salads fine ... usually well dressed, and not on a burger or a sandwich (I see no reason to dilute the flavor of the meat and cheese with lettuce). I like mustard, and dispise mayonnaise.
And - I’d give my right arm for a plate of chicken wings right now.
H
This has been obvious to me for years. I have a son who has never been able to enjoy more than a few foods, even though he is now is his 20's. Many doctors claimed they would be able to help him with this, but none ever could.
He has two female relatives who have had anorexia. But he never spent much time with them, so the connection is obviously genetic.
I don't have either of these problems, but I must be a carrier.
Now I have a younger son (half brother to my older son) who is also showing signs of being a picky eater, although we are doing everything we can think of to avoid having him follow this path.
I’m lucky in that my kid will eat any vegetable you put in front of him except cauliflower. He’s been eating odd stuff since he could gum it (tofu,green/red peppers, etc.. ). Only kindergartener I know who wants carrot sticks in his Superman lunchbox. ;)
you only get MORE of what you put up with... usually in spades.
I did one modification. If you didn't want to eat what I prepared, you could go to the pantry and get the makings for a PB&J. That was your only substitute. Both my boys liked PB&J, so I never felt guilty. But that was your only option. And the kid had to prepare it. Or else they went to bed hungry. Hunger can be a big behavior modifier.
That was my theory in all things confrontational. You can do it my way, or you can do it this one alternative way, but you will do one of these two choices. And let the chips fall where they may.
Make kids try a taste of everything...then they will have a wide palet. If you don’t taste...you end up eating cardboard food.
If I didn’t taste in my mothers house...I went hungary!
Just like the article mentions at the end, my mother basically hid all of the healthy stuff in regular looking food that her three brats accepted, employing stealth cooking for everything from hamburgers to peanut butter sandwiches to pasta sauces to cake. And her mother did the same, as did hers, and likely so on. I don’t recall ever arguing with her over food (though the few times my father had gastrointestinal jurisdiction over us - mom being sick, or with a relative at the hospital, etc - words were exchanged and consequences meted out).
The funniest thing is (and I know this is nothing but anecdotal), many of my friends with supposedly crippling aversions to particular food items offered no protest to eating said items at my house; likewise, my younger brother happily ate his forbidden foods (in non-stealth concoctions) when dining with the families of his friends!
Somewhat similar situation for me. When I was young, I used to eat just about anything. As I got a bit older (about 7 - mid teens), I got really picky with what I ate. I think I grew out of that, since nowadays I’ll try just about anything (including the stuff I hated before).
Even at the age of 1, she refused to eat mashed potatoes, vegetables, etc.
She was forced to eat vegetables and fruits. She learned to like some of them.
To this day, if they go out to eat and she isn’t familiar with the restaurant, she worries and frets about what they will have on the menu. She really is afraid of food.
My 9 year old daughter is as finicky as they come. Doesn’t like most kid staples, e.g., pizza, hot dogs and the like and refuses to even try something different. My 7 year old son is the opposite. He loves pretty much everything including the exotic—sushi, smoked oysters and clams, crab etc.—and will try anything. That said, for meals they “get what you get and don’t throw a fit”....
Yep, I feel like there’s no one to blame but myself - I do eat more things now than at when I was 18 - hopefully my teenagers will also. One of them is a diabetic, so her meals are cereal, peanut butter for lunch, some fruits and vegies (though mostly the main ones like carrots, green beans, corn and apples, bananas and strawberries)...But, hey, if she ever gets sick and tired of the old stuff then I figure she’ll grow brave. My son used to gag at the dinner table until my husband begged me not to ruin the dinner hour anymore.
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