So sick of my child’s picky eating

[Anonymous]

I think "picky eaters" is a rich white child problem. I bet poor children whose folks use food stamps eat whateve is put on the table and are bloody grateful for any food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think "picky eaters" is a rich white child problem. I bet poor children whose folks use food stamps eat whateve is put on the table and are bloody grateful for any food.

Actually, I've read research that said the lack of vegetables and other healthy foods purchased by low income families is less an issue of "food deserts" but that parents can't afford to serve something the kids will reject so they opt for the easiest-to-accept foods. So, yes, all kids can have strong food aversions but only rich people have the luxury of offering broccoli week after week only to throw most of it away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think "picky eaters" is a rich white child problem. I bet poor children whose folks use food stamps eat whateve is put on the table and are bloody grateful for any food.

It's actually the opposite. Low income families can't afford to have their children reject foods, so it's common to rely on familiar, safe foods. There are also access issues, and other social and psychological considerations, but fundamentally it just takes money and time to go through the process of introducing new foods to kids (prepare, offer, reject, repeat until accepted). That's why lower income children eat poorer diets and have higher rates of diet-related health conditions than higher SES kids. Also why it's critical for school lunches to offer new and healthy food choices, even if they get dumped in the trash most of the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/opinion/why-poor-children-cant-be-picky-eaters.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think "picky eaters" is a rich white child problem. I bet poor children whose folks use food stamps eat whateve is put on the table and are bloody grateful for any food.

My mom was a single parent, and my father racked up over $30k in arrears for child support. We had a garden, my grandparents had a garden, my grandparents brought over a few bags of food per week, and we had some food stamps, even though my mother had a full time minimum wage job.

I was a picky eater as a child, as was my sister. My sister didn’t know she had food allergies until she was a adult, and she found that the vast majority of the foods she had refused were allergens. In my case, specialists and I realized that I am sensitive to some foods and others set off reactions if there’s an environmental trigger.

I’ve also worked with kids who grew up with food insecurity. These are children who never knew what they would have available for the next meal or even if there would be any food available. Yes, some kids learn to bolt any offered food without tasting it and never revise anything. However, others react by controlling anything they can, sometimes refusing the only food or drink available. There are also issues with children who have learned (the hard way) to reject any rich food, because they know that those foods have made them vomit before (when their body is close to or in starvation mode), and they’re not mature/experienced enough to understand that they can be safe if they’ve been eating regularly.

[Anonymous]

Didn’t read all the responses, sorry.
I am a now all-grown-up picky eater.

I got better in college (peer pressure to eat different foods) and much better as time has gone on. Taste buds decrease as we age, so intensely flavored or strangely textured foods are less offensive.

I still won’t eat fish, though - it has a disgusting smell - like the amine compounds in organic chemistry lab - and I simply can’t choke it down. Warm yogurt and over-ripe bananas are a no-go. And I can’t stand cuts of meat - meat flavor is OK, but I can’t tolerate bits of fat or chewy bits. My husband just shrugs and says it’s probably better for the environment that we eat very little meat.

Anyway, my mother was also a picky eater and understood the misery. So I always had the option of a cheese or peanut butter sandwich or breakfast for dinner as long as I also had a piece of fruit (apple, orange, grapefruit, banana), a vegetable (cut up carrots or peppers), and a glass of milk. I do the same with my picky eaters.

I suspect that there is a genetic component - I come from a long line of picky eaters. That includes my grandfather, who grew up in poverty in a tenement on the lower east side of NYC in the early 1900s and had 12 siblings - but was also a very picky eater.

I can imagine that it’s frustrating but I wouldn’t spend too much mental energy on it. Just give up for now. And it will get better… Eventually.

[Anonymous]

Cook what you want, and put it in front of him. Don't say another word. If he doesn't eat, let it be. Next meal, let it be. Don't say a word.
Cook a couple of things he will eat, and leave it at that. After one week, he will start eating. Maybe not what you want him to eat, but he will eat.
You have created a power struggle with him, and he is winning. He is not eating BCS he knows he can control you with it.
Smart kid.
Relinquish the control and the struggle and let him starve.
(clearly check with pediatrician to rule out any digestive tract issues).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an adult picky eater, please know your son doesn't WANT to be this way. I'm sure he wishes he liked more, that he didn't worry when going to restaurants, or to people's homes, etc.

I was just somehow born like this, and although I eat more than the four things I ate at age 2 (yogurt, grilled cheese, pb&j, and I forget the other), I am still distinctly picky. Wish I weren't, but I truly hate a lot of foods.

Unless your son is a brilliant psychopath, he's NOT doing this to drive you crazy.

Oh, yes, he would be doing this for that exact reason! She is driving him crazy and he is smarter than mom! He does it better. He is a kid! Kids are not dumb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he’s hungry he will eat. Seriously. When he’s hungry enough he will eat.

That doesn't solve anything though. My 10 year is more than willing to skip dinner knowing that preferred foods will be available for breakfast and lunch. She's fine with just those two meals.

My husband said when he was a kid if he refused dinner, they would serve it for breakfast. And if he refused it for breakfast, he would get it for lunch.
Not saying you should do this, but what would happen if breakfast also wasn't a preferred food?

My parents did something like this. I still didn't eat. Eventually my mom would negotiate on my behalf to let me drink a glass of milk...which I would drink. They tried keeping me home from school too. TBH, the more they pushed the less likely I was to agree.

I eat most things now, but I maintain that people who think you can force an extremely picky eater into eating something through hunger really don't understand. I got hungry, but my unwillingness to eat something I didn't like was stronger than my hunger pangs. FWIW, it's not generally an issue for me now since I eat most things. But I still won't eat something I don't like no matter how hungry I am.

[Anonymous]

For all those saying “just put food in front of the kid,” it would be cruel to make a drastic change now when poor habits have formed. Imagine if someone changed your diet overnight without your participation.

The kid needs some kind of program/therapeutic approach now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he’s hungry he will eat. Seriously. When he’s hungry enough he will eat.

You’d be surprised. When I was 10 I passed out after 2 days of not eating. My aunt refused to feed me anything but what she put in a plate the first night of my visit. If I could have eaten it, I would.

Kids don’t choose to be picky eaters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spend hours each week planning, shopping, cooking, and preparing 90% of our family’s meals and my six year old is driving me up the wall. He refuses, unless coerced (“three bites of all new foods” “clean plate club or no screens after dinner” etc), to try any new foods. We spent years playing it cool, putting it on his plate and telling him he didn’t have to try it if he didn’t want to, etc and it did absolutely nothing. Everything he tastes he says he doesn’t like, and 50% of the time he gags when he is coerced into trying it. He will not try basic things—even sweet things, like cake or toast with jam or a different flavor of muffin! Foods he does like are rejected if they are cut in a different shape. He will not eat ANY convenience foods—yogurt, pizza, mac n cheese, quesadillas, chicken nuggets, nothing. I am just so frustrated by the unwillingness to TRY and the immediate rejection of everything after tasting it, without even thinking of whether or not it could potentially taste good.
I’m not very sure if I’m looking for advice, I just need to rant. Most resources for picky eating are for toddlers, and playing little games or cutting things into fun shapes is not going to convince a six year old.

Put the food on the table and that's that. He eats or goes hungry. If he doesn't eat then he is excused from table and gets ready for bed. He does this to get attention and you are letting him win. I told this story before but I'll repeat for your brnefit. My sister's son came to visit and stay with us for two weeks one summer. At his house he would only eat pizza, PB&grape jelly sandwiches, and french fries from McDonald's. I put dinner on the table and told him this was dinner in my house--no pizza, no PB&K, no Mac fries. Eat or go hungry. It was a simple dinner and he ate everything. He also told me that he was only picky at home because he knew his mother would give him all her attention.

You are the parent and his boss
Stop letting him rule the dinner table.

You’re a jerk. I’m a picky eater and the LAST thing I want from it, and the absolute last thing I wanted as a kid, was attention for it. I HATED the attention. Just leave me alone and let me have a piece of bread. Instead, an aunt like you congratulated herself as she refused to feed me for two days.

[Anonymous]

My 8 year old is the same. She won't gag though and she willingly tries new foods, she just doesn't like them. She loves carbs and cheese (who can blame her) but beyond that it's really really difficult. I've stopped fighting and just keep encouraging and praising trying new foods. But it limits restaurants and makes social gatherings difficult. At a Mexican restaurant I told her I can ask for plain tortillas or she could just eat chips for dinner and that doesn't even work. She would rather cry herself to sleep from hunger than eat what I made for dinner. And I deconstruct a lot of it so people can choose their own veggie, sauces, toppings etc.

She helps make the weekly menu and helps me cook, and STILL doesn't eat it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an adult picky eater, please know your son doesn't WANT to be this way. I'm sure he wishes he liked more, that he didn't worry when going to restaurants, or to people's homes, etc.

I was just somehow born like this, and although I eat more than the four things I ate at age 2 (yogurt, grilled cheese, pb&j, and I forget the other), I am still distinctly picky. Wish I weren't, but I truly hate a lot of foods.

Unless your son is a brilliant psychopath, he's NOT doing this to drive you crazy.

+10000

I’m an adult picky eater, too. It is not my choice. I have spent the greater part of 4 decades trying to be more flexible with food. It is awful. No kid chooses this.

The best suggestion I have is to bridge foods. For instance, I would eat baked potatoes. My best friend in college convinced me that kidney beans were basically Lilliputian baked potatoes. She even broke one open, fluffed up the white insides, and prepared it like a mini baked potato. And after years of literally gagging and vomiting when trying beans, I ate my first one. Then they became some of my favorite foods! (I’m trying to eat low carb now or I’d eat bean chili all day every day.)

For me, it’s about safe foods. Foods that don’t put me in a panic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 8 year old is the same. She won't gag though and she willingly tries new foods, she just doesn't like them. She loves carbs and cheese (who can blame her) but beyond that it's really really difficult. I've stopped fighting and just keep encouraging and praising trying new foods. But it limits restaurants and makes social gatherings difficult. At a Mexican restaurant I told her I can ask for plain tortillas or she could just eat chips for dinner and that doesn't even work. She would rather cry herself to sleep from hunger than eat what I made for dinner. And I deconstruct a lot of it so people can choose their own veggie, sauces, toppings etc.

She helps make the weekly menu and helps me cook, and STILL doesn't eat it.

She wouldn’t rather cry. Crying is awful. She is in so much pain. Why won’t you just give her what she will eat and take the torture out of it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If he’s hungry he will eat. Seriously. When he’s hungry enough he will eat.

This. Let him taste hunger. If he doesn't eat any dinner put plastic wrap on it and it becomes breakfast.