Anyone else have an Uber-Picky Eater Child?

ksmorck

OK - Question to all you 'super-smuggie just suck it up because obviously you are an overindulgent parent' people - if it worked so well for you when you were young - what are you doing on MFP?

Finding balance in my adult life. I was a super active farm kid & could eat whatever I wanted all day long. Real adult life & a real job, less daily activity caught up with me. Then I had a baby & have taken getting myself back in healthy shape seriously with the help of MFP to set a good example for him.

glovepuppet

OK - Question to all you 'super-smuggie just suck it up because obviously you are an overindulgent parent' people - if it worked so well for you when you were young - what are you doing on MFP?

My parents were poor and could only afford crap food like fish sticks, potatoes, white rice mixes, etc. They were not indulgent in feeding us worthless food, it was a necessity for survival. So I got fat by learning to eat trash as a child and now, I have to teach myself how to eat. I refuse to have my daughter have to change her entire eating behavior when she's in her 30s and suffering from health problems, so I am heavy-handed for her own good.

With all due respect, I think you are giving your influence as a parent far too much credit.

First of all, fish sticks, rice and potatoes CAN BE a part of a normal healthy lifestyle. Second of all, most of us eat what we want as adults regardless of what our parents put in front of us. It's not like if you feed your kids McDonald's nuggets every day for 18 years, at age 19 they remain incapable of eating anything other than McD's nuggets. Educate your kids, talk openly about food, nutrition and fitness without judgment or pressure, offer a wide variety of choices and let them have a heavy say in what you make for dinner, always encouraging them to explore and making it sound fun and interesting.

IMHO severely restricting children's food for them does NOT empower them to make healthy choices for themselves as adults. Education, modeling good choices and empowering THEM to do so for themselves does.

i absolutely agree.

i don't agree with only teaching my kids do do as i say because i say so. what happens when i'm not there? what happens once they're free to decide?

i want to teach my kids how to reason, how to weigh up the pros and cons, to understand the impact diet has upon their bodies, to understand moderation. i want to know that, when i'm not there, i've done my best to give them the tools to make an informed choice of their own.

ksmorck

OK - Question to all you 'super-smuggie just suck it up because obviously you are an overindulgent parent' people - if it worked so well for you when you were young - what are you doing on MFP?

MFP stands for My Fitness Pal, not My Fat Pal. Some people are on here to maintain fitness, seek new healthy ideas,find people with similar goals.

Or in some case (not going to name names) troll the message boards and make snarky comments.

Agree

contingencyplan

My son has high functioning autism and as a child he had severe sensory issues that caused him to throw up if he ate certain textures and flavors. He went through a phase where he'd eat nothing but pizza for 4 solid months. Today he is 16 and will eat anything you put in front of him, including foods he used to have meltdowns about if he even saw them on the same table.

This gives me hope!

I have that. Foods with certain textures make me gag and have trouble staying down. It got a little better. Still struggling with that aspect of it at 32 years old though. A lot of foods just won't make it all the way down to the stomach. Yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, and other squash family foods are among them. Dad used to hit me when I wouldn't keep them down because I thought I was doing it deliberately. Of course he would also hit me for not looking him in the eye (another area where aspies/autistics have trouble). He wasn't the BEST example =P

desiv2

No, sorry, my child will eat everything.. I dropped a raw egg on the floor this morning and he ate it before I could stop him.. damn dog.

ChapinaGrande

OK - Question to all you 'super-smuggie just suck it up because obviously you are an overindulgent parent' people - if it worked so well for you when you were young - what are you doing on MFP?

My parents were poor and could only afford crap food like fish sticks, potatoes, white rice mixes, etc. They were not indulgent in feeding us worthless food, it was a necessity for survival. So I got fat by learning to eat trash as a child and now, I have to teach myself how to eat. I refuse to have my daughter have to change her entire eating behavior when she's in her 30s and suffering from health problems, so I am heavy-handed for her own good.

With all due respect, I think you are giving your influence as a parent far too much credit.

First of all, fish sticks, rice and potatoes CAN BE a part of a normal healthy lifestyle. Second of all, most of us eat what we want as adults regardless of what our parents put in front of us. It's not like if you feed your kids McDonald's nuggets every day for 18 years, at age 19 they remain incapable of eating anything other than McD's nuggets. Educate your kids, talk openly about food, nutrition and fitness without judgment or pressure, offer a wide variety of choices and let them have a heavy say in what you make for dinner, always encouraging them to explore and making it sound fun and interesting.

IMHO severely restricting children's food for them does NOT empower them to make healthy choices for themselves as adults. Education, modeling good choices and empowering THEM to do so for themselves does.

Thank you very much for the advice! Unfortunately, the information didn't make it into my response to the OP's question, which was about why I am on MFP because it wasn't relevant, but I already do the things you suggested. I may have used strong, heavy language because I felt defensive (Unfortunately, due to the nature of internet forums, it is impossible to determine a poster's intended tone. I felt a judgy tone in her question that I'm sure was unintentional). I assure you that I am teaching my child proper nutrition and fitness in a way that is fascinating to her and appropriate for my family. Please excuse my defensiveness.

I now quietly exit this thread.

ldrosophila

If your daughter is a super taster then it will be very hard to get her to eat vegetables because she can taste the bitter compounds that you and I cant taste. Is her father picky? Ask her questions...why doesnt she like the vegetables is it the texture, are they bitter, is it the smell.

DO NOT hide vegetables in her food especially at this age if she finds out then she will lose all trust in your cooking and it will make introducing more vegetables harder.

Make her responsible for something like the family salad, or choosing a new vegetable at the store, start letting her, if you dont already, cook. If she makes something or tries a vegetable remember to lavish her with praise. Another is you give her knowledge you let her know why it's important to eat vegetables. Make it fun she loves corn research the history of corn have corn day with all the varieties. Next week it'll be lettuce day or brown rice day. What ever way she eats vegetables is the way to get her to eat them. Unless she has some medical issues/weight problem I dont care if she slathers her vegetables in ranch and cheese. ANYTHING to get her to eat it. Introduce her to new methods of preparing vegetables sometimes the only way I can get the super-uber-picky supertaster of a BF to try anything is if it is fried. He'll eat okra and zucchini if it has a batter. She might love vegetables in a tempura batter. Make it fun, experiment, involve her, and educate her. Good job being a great Mama!

Hellbent_Heidi

No, sorry, my child will eat everything.. I dropped a raw egg on the floor this morning and he ate it before I could stop him.. damn dog.

I think I you :laugh:

lrichardson2360

Kids become picky, unhealthy eaters because you gave them way too many sweet treats and not enough healthy foods from the cradle onward, leaving them to develop a taste exclusively for sweets and salts by the time they're old enough to choose for themselves.

I totally disagree with this statement. for the first two years of my kids lives they were not allowed to have sugary treats of any kind. Not even on their birthdays. Once they turned two, we slowly introduced a small treat here and there. My 9 year old son is a good eater and not into sweets, though he likes a little chocolate now and then and hates soda pop. My 4 year old daughter can smell sugar a mile away and will attack you if you have it on you. Every child is different.

samischell

If your daughter is a super taster then it will be very hard to get her to eat vegetables because she can taste the bitter compounds that you and I cant taste. Is her father picky? Ask her questions...why doesnt she like the vegetables is it the texture, are they bitter, is it the smell.

DO NOT hide vegetables in her food especially at this age if she finds out then she will lose all trust in your cooking and it will make introducing more vegetables harder.

Make her responsible for something like the family salad, or choosing a new vegetable at the store, start letting her, if you dont already, cook. If she makes something or tries a vegetable remember to lavish her with praise. Another is you give her knowledge you let her know why it's important to eat vegetables. Make it fun she loves corn research the history of corn have corn day with all the varieties. Next week it'll be lettuce day or brown rice day. What ever way she eats vegetables is the way to get her to eat them. Unless she has some medical issues/weight problem I dont care if she slathers her vegetables in ranch and cheese. ANYTHING to get her to eat it. Introduce her to new methods of preparing vegetables sometimes the only way I can get the super-uber-picky supertaster of a BF to try anything is if it is fried. He'll eat okra and zucchini if it has a batter. She might love vegetables in a tempura batter. Make it fun, experiment, involve her, and educate her. Good job being a great Mama!

samischell

thank you for above post very insightful and encouraging!

ldrosophila

When I was young, Mom made one meal for everyone. You ate it or you sat at the dinner table all night long until it was time for bed. That didn't mean you didn't have to eat it. She saved it for you for the next night.

We spend a ridiculous amount of time catering to our kids today. My philosophy is, put it out there, they'll eat when they get hungry enough.

Don't even get me started on designer pet food.

At 3 years old, my daughter does not understand this concept, yet.

I have a extremely picky eater. So, doing the whole "one dinner" deal doesn't work.

My 2 year old 'gets' this.

that's utterly fabulous for you.
of course, all kids are different. you'll get kids with autism who'll only eat yellow food, as an extreme.
given identical situations, different children will not react in an identical way.

I do agree that children with disabilities are most definitely an exception.

that was not my point. that was merely an extreme example.

my point is that every child is different, some are easier than others, and if you're lucky (like we are) to have non-picky eaters that might have sod all to do with us doing it the right way. it's just as likely that we were damn lucky to have had kids who were easy to feed. unless we know something of the cause of a child's pickiness, the attitude of the parents and the efforts the parents have gone to, we have no right to judgement or smugness.

i do not have a disability, my mother followed the one meal rule, never bought us sweets & treats, made us sit at the table. i was quite content to starve. hunger didn't bother me and i still hate her food. i found those sorts of meals traumatic. my sisters, raised in the exact same way, ate pretty much everything she put in front of them and were perfectly content. i eat a wide mix of food now but still refuse to eat anything containing even the smallest lump of onion.

Question if you had a daughter like yourself how would you handle the situation? Would you make a second meal for her, would you change the recipes so she would accept it, would you keep her at the table, or would you let her make her own choice at meal if old enough?

If your Mom had handled your meals differently do you think you would be eating onions today?

aimforhealthy

My son has high functioning autism and as a child he had severe sensory issues that caused him to throw up if he ate certain textures and flavors. He went through a phase where he'd eat nothing but pizza for 4 solid months. Today he is 16 and will eat anything you put in front of him, including foods he used to have meltdowns about if he even saw them on the same table.

This gives me hope!

I have that. Foods with certain textures make me gag and have trouble staying down. It got a little better. Still struggling with that aspect of it at 32 years old though. A lot of foods just won't make it all the way down to the stomach. Yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, and other squash family foods are among them. Dad used to hit me when I wouldn't keep them down because I thought I was doing it deliberately. Of course he would also hit me for not looking him in the eye (another area where aspies/autistics have trouble). He wasn't the BEST example =P

I'm really sorry that happened to you and that you weren't respected in those ways growing up. IT IS OKAY NOT TO LIKE EGGPLANT. I loathe it and won't touch it myself and I am not on the spectrum! Eggplant, zucchini and bananas - the slimy sticky texture just will not go down. It's okay to not like things and not want to eat them! Everyone (EVEN KIDS) have the right to have their preferences respected.

aimforhealthy

Thank you very much for the advice! Unfortunately, the information didn't make it into my response to the OP's question, which was about why I am on MFP because it wasn't relevant, but I already do the things you suggested. I may have used strong, heavy language because I felt defensive (Unfortunately, due to the nature of internet forums, it is impossible to determine a poster's intended tone. I felt a judgy tone in her question that I'm sure was unintentional). I assure you that I am teaching my child proper nutrition and fitness in a way that is fascinating to her and appropriate for my family. Please excuse my defensiveness.

I now quietly exit this thread.

No need to exit, sugar! We are all doing the best we can with our kids. The fact that we are on here thinking about how to feed them in the healthiest and most positive ways is a good thing even if we don't all agree on every point. :flowerforyou:

PlayerHatinDogooder

Just feed them less often.

The hungrier they are the less likely they are to be picky.

FantasticKitty01

does she eat pasta with the sauce? maybe when you make it next time, throw the sauce in a food processor with mid veggies (bell peppers, mushrooms, squash, etc.) and she'll eat the sauce with the pasta and still get the nutrients from the veggies you put in. My 5yr old will not try any fruit, so i try to give fruit juice that's 100% juice.

pinkledoodledoo

Tell her to eat what you make or go hungry. That's what I was always told as a kid.

glovepuppet

Question if you had a daughter like yourself how would you handle the situation? Would you make a second meal for her, would you change the recipes so she would accept it, would you keep her at the table, or would you let her make her own choice at meal if old enough?

i know for certain that i wouldn't bury my head in the sand, as my own mother did, refusing to change her tactics despite my weight dropping dangerously low.

there are things that my kids dislike. we talk about it, think about alternatives, compromise on frequency. i never make my kids eat the things they utterly loathe. i don't see the point in continuing to put cabbage on her plate if she hates cabbage. i cook less cabbage and give her extra brocolli & peas.

i try to emphasise the fun of finding healthy diets you like, not in forcing down yucky greens whist dreaming of yummy candy.

if nothing i did worked, i'd be taking my kid to the doc and asking to be refered to an expert. a lot more teens die from eating disorders than they do from being picky!

glovepuppet

If your Mom had handled your meals differently do you think you would be eating onions today?

nope. i think i just don't like onions.

atsteele

Kids become picky, unhealthy eaters because you gave them way too many sweet treats and not enough healthy foods from the cradle onward, leaving them to develop a taste exclusively for sweets and salts by the time they're old enough to choose for themselves.

blanket statements... so rarely accurate.
there are a huge range of reasons why kids become picky eaters.

Yep. One of the reasons could be sensory. My son has a mild form of autism and I have to make sure that I have the foods he likes or he won't eat. (He's not underweight but he isn't overweight either. He's actually on the low end of the normal range.) He used to run out of the room holding his nose if I was making chicken! LOL But he has improved as he has gotten older. Part of that is that he realized what foods were upsetting his stomach so he could be more confident in trying new foods that wouldn't bother his stomach. Another part of his success in broadening his horizons is that I don't force him to eat anything. But I also don't allow him to eat goodies without eating something of nutritional value first. (Goodies aren't really necessary in our diet anyway... not that I don't make chocolate chip cookies on occassion.) Also, like one person already stated, I let him grocery shop with me or at least ask him what he might like from the store. I try to pick out fresh fruits and vegetables that are in season locally so that they taste the best. Currently he's on a blueberry kick.

SleeplessinBerlin

if your kid is eating pasta, tomato sauce is probably accepted, right? Enrich the sauce by adding other vegetables to it - zucchini, broccoli, peppers, carrots - you name it - and make sure you puree those veggies so that the sauce is nice and thick. Tomato will dominate the taste of other veggies anyway.

One of my fave pasta sauces is made of cherry tomatoes, a piece of parmesan, almonds, fresh basil, one garlic and some oil. And anchovies, just 2-3 fillets, for the taste. If you blend it all in a food processor, you have your sauce ready before the noodles are cooked.

JenAndSome

I can't even get my kids to eat corn. What I have been doing lately is putting their meat and the veggies on the plate. They don't get any of the carb until they eat their veggies. So far it's been working okay. I don't care if they dip their veggies in ranch, mustard ketchup, whatever it takes to get them to eat it.

blackmantis

Best thing for kids is to juice dark green veggies with fruit and let them drink them problem solved.

tinak33

When I was young, Mom made one meal for everyone. You ate it or you sat at the dinner table all night long until it was time for bed. That didn't mean you didn't have to eat it. She saved it for you for the next night.

We spend a ridiculous amount of time catering to our kids today. My philosophy is, put it out there, they'll eat when they get hungry enough.

Don't even get me started on designer pet food.

HAHAHAHA
This was our house.
Except we didn't always get it for dinner the next day. Sometimes we got it for lunch instead.

My brother was the pickiest eater in the family. It got to the point where 5/7 days his dinner was a tall glass of whole milk.
If he didn't like the dinner, he just didn't eat it. He never complained, he never commented about it, he participated in dinner conversation with everyone else. He just didn't eat.
That all changed when he went away to a boarding school for high school. He came back eating everything. At the school, you ate. Even if you didn't like it. haha


Quick story: When I was 4, I hated celery. My mom made me tuna for lunch and it had maybe 5-8 little pieces of celery in it. I wouldn't eat it. She told me that I had to stay at the table until I ate it.
8 hours later, I went to bed..... celery still on the plate. :laugh:
I was a very stubborn child.... And I get that stubborness from my mom.

amaysngrace

My son is non-verbal and autistic. He is 6 years old, and it seems the older he gets, the more restrictive his diet becomes. Currently, he will not eat fish sticks or hamburger helper, which he ate several years ago. So, now he only eats Yummy brand Chicken Nuggets, Banquet-brand Salisbury Steak Frozen Dinners, Ramen Noodles-every blue moon, pepperoni or cheese pizza-any brand as long as it is sliced like a triangle and the pepperoni is round and on top of the cheese. He use to drink milk, until I tried to do the gluten-free casein-free diet, now he only consumes it because I use the milk to mix his oatmeal with. He will only eat Gerber-brand Baby Oatmeal cereal, and he will let me add a sliced banana in it, but nothing else. He only drinks orange juice, any type of carbonated drink, but I will only allow him to drink Fresca or 7-up 10 occasionally, and he regularly drinks fruitables. He will eat a biscuit and cornbread occasionally. The only home cooked meals he will consume of mine are chili, every blue moon-spaghetti, and rotel. He has expressed an interest in a scrambled egg, he watched me eat, but when I let him try it, he spit it out because I had fresh cilantro in it, and he could taste it.

Now, my remedy for all this will probably be looking into a juice plus supplement to add to the foods he does eat, but since this is kind of costly, I might just invest in a really good juicer, such as Vitamix and juice his veggies and fruits, since he loves juice. I have also snuck in organic carrot juice into his orange juice and he did not seem to detect it, but it did give him the runs though. That is about the only thing I feel I can do and take him for walks with me, when weather permits. Fighting with him is a pain and I try to pick my battles with him because if he does not want to eat something he will not eat it! Even, if he starves to death, he will still not bulge in to my request of him eating anything different than what he wants to eat. Therefore, I will just try to sneak in healthy fruits and vegetables using the juicing method.


And for those of you who do not have an autistic child, letting an autistic child go hungry until he or she eats what you present to them will not work. They will starve themselves to the point of hospitalization, at least mine will. Although I never let him get to that point, because after presenting to him a new food several times and he rejected for 3 days in a row, I just let it be and gave him what he normally eats. Not saying that the OP's child is autistic, but in case she is, then she already knows what she is dealing with.

BeccaBollons

I have a 2 and a half year old who eats only bread and milk regularly. His sister who is now 6 ate EVERYTHING I gave her, and usually cried when the food was finished. So I thought fussy children didn't really exist, I thought it was environmental, a learned behaviour, and that other parents obviously just weren't doing it right. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Enter my son, who would only feed for 5 mins at a time when I was breastfeeding. I couldn't get him to try ANY food at 6 months, so I just breastfed for a year, and the only food he would eat was toast, and egg custard from a jar. I'm not kidding. Health visitors said he's growing fine and he'll eat when he's hungry, but he doesn't. Now he's a bit older I can get him to eat a very small portion of dinner, but some days he won't touch any of it. I don't give alternatives, and he doesn't fill up on snacks. He has loads of energy, is tall (but skinny) for his age, and sleeps through the night.
I just think he is one of those people to whom food is not that important. My mum and sister are the same, but I am really not!
I'm hoping that within the next year or so he'll just keep increasing his quantities and variety.
So, to answer the OP, yes I have a picky eater in that he only picks at his food, and how I deal with it is to make sure he eats something, however small an amount. And hope he grows out of it!

saxmaniac

No offense, but I feel sorry for your kids. "If they like something too much, it's a CLEAR sign that I should step in and limit it!" Where on earth did you get this notion? What are you hoping to accomplish by punishing preferences this way? Would you like someone to do that to you? If my kid loves to eat something, I love making it for him. You can't get "addicted" to any one particular food. You're projecting your issues onto your kids. I'm not saying this to be mean, but that's a MEAN way to treat a kid who is honest about what their preferences are to you.

I'll raise my kids, you raise yours, OK?

We choose what to buy, they choose what to eat. For now. It's pretty simple.

Let's say if your kid ate 3 boxes of Oreos in a day, you'd go out and buy 4 next week, that way they "express their preferences"? Because that's what you are saying.

For a while they got really annoying about eating chicken nuggets, and would only eat those and whining about it. So we stopped buying them temporarily, and, lo and behold, being tiny children, their attention wandered and they started eating other things. Then we brought them back into rotation.

My son decided he didn't like dinner, and started just eating a few sandwiches for a snack and skipping dinner. Then he'd decide he didn't want to come to the table. We'd run out bread. Rather than buy more bread, we only bought enough for a reasonable amount.

I parent my kids, they don't parent me. Refusing to buying them something they want is not "punishment".

amaysngrace

When I was young, Mom made one meal for everyone. You ate it or you sat at the dinner table all night long until it was time for bed. That didn't mean you didn't have to eat it. She saved it for you for the next night.

We spend a ridiculous amount of time catering to our kids today. My philosophy is, put it out there, they'll eat when they get hungry enough.

Don't even get me started on designer pet food.

HAHAHAHA
This was our house.










Except we didn't always get it for dinner the next day. Sometimes we got it for lunch instead.

My brother was the pickiest eater in the family. It got to the point where 5/7 days his dinner was a tall glass of whole milk.
If he didn't like the dinner, he just didn't eat it. He never complained, he never commented about it, he participated in dinner conversation with everyone else. He just didn't eat.
That all changed when he went away to a boarding school for high school. He came back eating everything. At the school, you ate. Even if you didn't like it. haha


Quick story: When I was 4, I hated celery. My mom made me tuna for lunch and it had maybe 5-8 little pieces of celery in it. I wouldn't eat it. She told me that I had to stay at the table until I ate it.
8 hours later, I went to bed..... celery still on the plate. :laugh:
I was a very stubborn child.... And I get that stubborness from my mom.

Me too. My mom tried to make me eat beets or peas, which I will not eat to this day. I will pick out all the peas in a tuna casserole or a chicken pot pie and it will be a big pile on my plate. The funny thing is my mom would always bribe me with a dessert and she told me if I ate all my beets, I would get strawberry shortcake or peanut butter cookies. Then she would leave the room, her mistake, because I would just wrap the beets or peas in a paper towel and stuff it in the trash. When I was in elementary, I would just place it on the top of the trash can and she would sometimes notice it, but not often. However, as I got older, I became smart enough to know to wrap the beets up and put them in the bottom of the trash can, so she could not see it. Of course, the dog was always readily available up under the table, and I would hand him things I did not want to eat, with no problem.

PixieGoddess

I can't help from the parent point of view, but I was that child. Below are some of my suggestions, and I didn't read through the thread, so sorry if there are repeats.
1. Try lots of different veggies cooked lots of different ways. Example: I have always hated raw carrots and still do. But I LOVE cooked carrots. So see if she likes something better with a different texture. Similarly, let her try it without seasoning first; if she doesn't like it, try adding different seasonings. (I've actually sat down with unseasoned veggies and lots of different spices and just season one bite at a time to see what I like - that could be something fun for a kid!)
2. Engage her in cooking. Looking back, I can see that I first started to branch out a little when I started learning how to cook, maybe because I liked to experiment with cooking and learn to cook lots of different things? I dunno, just a suggestion. It also helped convince me that mayonnaise (the evil icky food of my childhood) was not lurking inside every single dish that my mother made.
3. Give it time. Honestly, I didn't shuck off the last of my picky eater mentality until college, when I was dependent on the dining halls for all my meals. So I started trying different foods because (a) they were available, and (b) I didn't want to keep eating the same select foods twice/day for weeks on end. I also wanted to go out sometimes with my friends, and I didn't wanna be a downer that always got a burger at all these ethnic restaurants we went to, so I started trying stuff. (Peer pressure can sometimes be good!)

Hope this helps. Good luck!

Legs_McGee

When I was young, Mom made one meal for everyone. You ate it or you sat at the dinner table all night long until it was time for bed.

It was this way in my house too. I hated eating when I was a kid. It was a war of attrition; but I usually won. I'd sit there for hours and hours. My parents had jobs and stuff - I didn't have anything better to do.