The New Yorker ran an article a few years ago about a small group of Mexican fisherman that got stranded at sea for several months in a small lifeboat. They subsisted on raw fish they were somehow able to grab from the water, except for the captain, who was unable to make himself eat the raw flesh. He starved to death. The rest survived until they were finally rescued. I firmly believe my oldest kid would starve like the captain, while the younger kid would be extolling the virtues and nuances of sushi to the others.
I teach myself to eat foods I don’t like by not offereing them too myself until I am very hungry. They always taste much better when I am hungry and I will like them from that point on.
I think this is covered by the Andean Flight (1972) precedent. Most stopped being picky, but some stuck to their principles.
My wife used to be a leader in the Girl Guides. Every year would take a group, varying in size between 10 and 30 girls aged between 10 and 14 camping under canvas. At first she was the cook, and later the leader of the whole camp. My job was usually related to the kitchen, although as a man, I could not be in ‘charge’ of anything.
There would always be two or three girls with some kind of problem related to food (not counting vegetarians). This would be from the mild, “My daughter doesn’t eat greens”, to the extreme, “My daughter only eats crisps (chips)”.
By the second or third day of camp, we usually found these restrictions forgotten, and all the girls wolfing down whatever they were given. We put this down to three main things: Fresh air and exercise - lots of both make kids hungry. Example - being surrounded by your peers who are eating everything in sight, and going back for seconds, is a good motivator. Plain, wholesome food of the sort that kids generally like (no sprouts or broccoli) served up at fixed times with little opportunity for snacks in between.
At breakfast, they would cook their own on open fires. At home I doubt that many of them would have eaten the blackened sausages, singed bacon, or hard fried eggs, scraped off the pan, that they cooked, but squatting with a frying pan round a real fire seems to make a difference.
I said that it usually worked, and I can recollect a couple of girls over the years, who were pretty problematic, and one who was taken home half way through because she was just not eating. I guess that there really are some children who don’t feel hunger.
I used to work in an orphanage, where soon after I arrived we introduced the novel concept of the vegetable. It was a pretty epic battle, that was repeated with every new kid who came in. They always ended up eating, and it always happened fairly quickly too. Exceptions were made, of course, for allergies.
I’ve never come across a child who could actually wilfully hold out, but if they can hold their breath and hold their poo then I’m sure they can do that too. You’ll know when you need to fold and give them some nourishment they want. But my guess is that’s pretty rare. As in, I have never come across it in well over 100 children with behavioural problems.
We offered a small helping of veg, small helping of rice and beans (this was Brazil, they loved the rice and beans). Then you could have more of anything you wanted once the plate was clean. The first time it took a month to get through dinner without screaming and fighting, but after that everyone just gulped it down quickly and got over it. The longest they actually didn’t eat was no more than a day, I think.
I do believe that genuine sympathy is in order. I read quite an interesting article years ago (and wouldn’t know how to find it) that explained that almost all children really experience vegetables as extremely bitter. This is nature’s prevention to children putting everything in their mouth: natural things taste terrible for a while, until they have the sense to stop eating poisonous berries. Even things we think of as very mild tasting, say cucumber, can taste quite bitter to a child.
ETA: Just to be clear, anorexia and eating disorders are different. I’ve worked with kids with eating disorders too, but that’s not what this is about of course.
My granddaughter was a real picky eater. One of the few things she loved was peanut butter. Once we were at a restaurant and my son asked the waiter if he could bring her some. He came back with four or five of those breakfast packs. She threw a fit because it was the wrong brand. But she eventually forced it down.
Two things changed. First her parents took her to a psychologist who got her to agree to a pact that when faced with a new food, she would always try it and would have one of three reactions: yes, no, or try again later. Eventually she learned to like some new foods. The other thing that happened is that as she advanced into teenagehood, it was interfering with a rather active social life. She couldn’t sleep over with her friends, for example. This had an effect and she is much improved. She is not especially skinny, BTW. Peanut butter is very nourishing, as is Nutella.
My advice to parents is generally to get them checked out for food intolerances and allergies, and assuming those are negative, to keep junk food in your office or your trunk for your own indulgence, and let the child choose what to eat from a wide variety of wholesome foods, engage them in meal planning and preparation at a level appropriate to their ability, allow them a default healthy meal they can prepare for themselves if they don’t like what you’ve made (peanut butter and jam on whole wheat was my son’s major food source for 6 months) and to then back off and not make it a power struggle. That provides a work around for the most common problems: if you don’t like tomatoes, fine, don’t eat the tomatoes…have some carrots or some peas or some broccoli (contrary to reputation, most kids LOVE broccoli if it’s not overcooked!) If you’re mad at Mom and don’t want to accept her [del] love [/del] food tonight, fine, eat your pb&j or catch us at breakfast.
Do my kids (and by “my” I mean the kids I’ve birthed as well as the kids I’ve nannied or babysat over the years, which is many of them) have foods they won’t eat? Sure they do. So do I, so why would I expect them to be any different? Do I try to make things that they’ll like? Sure I do. I like them, and want them to enjoy their food. But I’ve never found a kid who will starve himself for more than a couple of meal who didn’t have a diagnosable medical condition or power struggle going on at home. I won’t say they don’t exist, but I do believe they are much rarer than my Facebook feed and Mommy boards would lead one to think.
And I do think that some - not all, but some - picky eaters are created by parents who reach for the same four foods when they’re small. Feed a kid nothing but pizza, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese and goldfish crackers, and that’s what they learn food is. There’s nothing wrong with those foods, but if you want an adventurous eater, you have to be an adventurous meal planner from the very beginning of solid foods.
It used to drive my mom nuts, well, not nuts, but she always found it odd that I could tell if she, say, used a different brand of ingredient in a recipe or made something ever so slightly different. Also to this day I can’t wear a shirt without tearing the tag out. Hypersensitivity is one of the symptoms of ADHD as well.
Some people live to eat.
Others eat to live.
Guess which camp has the most over weight people. (most, not all )
I hate people with fast metabolisms.
I wish I did not like food so much.
Whineeeeeeeeeeeeee, yes, cheese please.
I couldn’t eat a lot of foods when I was a child. I was very thin and small. My mother did not force foods on me, thank God. I would have vomited. It was terrifying to eat at friends’ houses because they not only were served food I even now can barely be in the same room with, like baloney sandwiches on Wonder Bread with sweet pickle relish, but many were forced to eat what was put in front of them. I spent a lot of time saying “oh, I’m not hungry, I just ate” when I was faint with hunger, because I was afraid I couldn’t eat what was served me and I would have to be fatally, horribly rude.
Notice how “picky” and “fussy” are pejorative words that imply that the person could eat those foods if they so chose, they are just too prissy and spoiled to do so, and need to be forced for their own good to straighten up and be the right kind of people. So my nausea was not only a social and physical torment to me, it was also something that I somehow was doing on purpose and could change any time I wanted. See how that works?
I have a lifelong history of nausea, stomach problems (ulcer) and presently I have graduated to irritable bowel syndrome, apparently. I am often, to put it simply, afraid of food, especially when I am stressed. Over the years I have developed a palette of safe (non-nauseating) foods that even American supermarkets might carry – sourdough bread, sharp cheese, raw fruit, a few other things.
I know how to cook for myself, and I know how to eat in restaurants. I can eat a wider variety of foods than I could as a child, but all my attempts at adventurous eating have ended in disaster, so I avoid it now.
My daughter went through a period as a small child when she only liked certain bland foods and apple juice. We just gave her what she wanted and she moved on after awhile. I never thought of it as a problem and neither did she.
I had eating problems as a child. Not only was I ‘picky’, I reacted to anxiety(which I always had a lot of) or crowded situations by feeling nauseous and unable to eat, which meant I went for years barely eating anything at school. My mom took the hard line with me most of the time (I had to eat what she put on my plate, and the whole family ate the same thing)- until I barely grew for three years and got diagnosed with failure to thrive by my pediatrician. She started offering me more foods I liked and bringing me home from school to feed me a hot lunch, and I started growing again.
So based solely on this I’d say that yes, even in modern day America it’s possible for a kid with eating issues to damage their health by choosing to ‘starve’ rather than eat when/what they don’t want to.
My guess is that children who don’t eat well either have psychological issues, physical issues, or both, and in very few cases, would be helped by “forcing” or “starving” or “breaking their will” or whatever people think they’re doing to children in the name of doing what’s best for them.
But that’s just me. I have extremely strong views on the subject, so I think I’ll just bow out here.
BINGO!
That statement reminds me of people who complain about sports programs where every child gets a trophy. Those programs wouldn’t exist if people didn’t sign their kids up for them. :rolleyes:
And as for kids having too many “things”, where did they get them? They didn’t just materialize in their homes; somebody had to buy them for them. :smack:
Some kids on the autism spectrum are extremely picky eaters. They may have only 5-10 things they eat. If they are highly sensitive to taste, texture, smell, look, etc, then they may be extremely reluctant to try anything new. I wouldn’t doubt that an autistic kid would hold out for a very long time if he didn’t get one of his preferred foods.
I don’t know how long my little girl would go without eating, but she will pass on lunch at school if it’s not something she likes, so it’s rare for her to eat lunch. I am stubborn, so I refuse to send her lunch when they have a perfectly good lunch there, so if she wants to eat, she will eat what she’s given. She’s gone all day without eating if I don’t serve anything she likes, and she’s very picky. Not when it comes to junk food, of course. She’ll eat that all day if I let her. I have a friend who told me her daughter will eat nothing but chicken nuggets, so that’s all she feeds her. It seems common with parents on my autism-related boards. I can’t imagine that not being worth fighting. I make my daughter taste everything, and then if she doesn’t like it she doesn’t have to eat any more. I make her do this at every meal I serve, and she has to try things she has said before she didn’t like. I don’t care. She will try it, and often she will discover she likes it. It’s hard, and I feel mean sometimes, but I KNOW she won’t starve to death because I MAKE her eat some things outside her comfort zone.
Or they have found a way to control their parents. Much more effective than holding their breath.
My five year old son is an incredibly picky eater as well. We’ve gotten him to try new foods but for the most part, he’ll eat the same few things everyday. He’d live off of yogurt, hotdogs, morningstar patties and nutella if you let him although he’ll eat other things if we put it in front of him. Funny enough won’t touch mac n. cheese, has tried pizza under pressure, but has never asked for it again, doesn’t really like pasta all that much, will eat chicken nuggets but doesn’t ask for them.
My son will skip lunch if it’s something he doesn’t like. He’'s eat some veggies and he’ll eat fruit so I don’t worry all that much. His physician said he’s healthy, and he’s in good shape as well as very active so I’m not worried. In some ways, it makes things easier for us, because we just eat out wherever we want, since I assume he won’t want anything anyhow. I think that he’s just pretty indifferent to food which may not be such a bad thing in life.
Some of us never grew out of it.
I think its a symbiotic relationship - you can’t have a fussy eater without an accomodating parent. And if you have an accomodating parent, nearly any child can get fussy when they know they can demand only their favorite foods.
Fussiness probably occurs on some sort of scale inherently - where at one end you have a kid - lets say 1 on the fussiness scale - who will try nearly anything - my son is like that. On the other end you have a kid like the nephew of a friend - 10 on the fussiness scale - with other issues like ODD and sensory issues - who lived off a diet of creamy peanut butter sandwiches on white bread for about four years (and yes, did have some health consequences). Put a two or three - a kid with some natural adventurousness, in a house where mom sweeps in anytime he doesn’t like something with “oh, darling, let me make you a grilled cheese sandwich” and he still might try everything, but he might decide its not worth eating if he is immediately temped with his favorite food. Put an eight or nine in a house where “eat it or starve kid” is the rule of the day, and you won’t end up with someone who enjoys food (and you will probably end up with someone with food issues), but he won’t be one of those kids who shows up for a sleepover at a friends and announces “I don’t EAT pizza.”
I have to say that as a mom, the most annoying trait of picky eaters is how they will arrive at your house for an overnight, and believe your house works like theirs. We’ve had some downright RUDE children in our house (that don’t get invited back) who not only don’t eat what is in front of them, but demand a special meal (and then dislike the brands in our house). My children also have friends who are delightful - although they are picky eaters - who will “try” whatever is put in front of them, move it around their plate in the polite fashion, if you ask say “I really don’t like it” and will wait until you offer something else before taking it (and if nothing else is offered, they fill up on the food on their plate that is least offensive to them - the girl I’m thinking of would live off milk - and I think at our house may have spent an entire weekend doing so). The picky ones that are polite I try and cook around when they are over - it isn’t the night for Thai or Indian.
Makes me wonder how I, at the top functioning end of the autism scale ended up eating more or less everything I was not actively allergic to with the exceptions of eggplant, zucchini, okra, uber fishy and pickled/preserved fish and liver/kidneys. And I have a liking for artichokes, musk candy, vegemite, chicken, pork and beef hearts and brussels sprouts.
[Amazed the kiddy shrink my parents had observe me - I do really have the skin oversensitivity and clothing I perceive as too harsh will drive me into changing clothing until I find something that doesn’t feel like sandpaper…]