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’ve raised three boys to maturity. They had two choices at mealtimes: ‘Take it, or leave it!’
None of the three ever missed a meal, and all are hale, hearty and healthy. Granted, they have their likes and dislikes, as do we all, but I never catered to them. They ate what was served. End of story. It was a BIG deal if we had take-out Chinese or a delivered pizza, LOL! If they wanted “junk food” they bought it out of their own hard-earned money. We didn’t have soda or snack foods of any kind other than homemade popcorn and pretzels. You ate at mealtime! What is with this constant “grazing” that kids (and adults) do these days?
They could get “treats” at Grandma’s House. That’s what Grandmas are for, right? ;)
We had oatmeal or (plain) cereal or eggs or pancakes for breakfast. We had sandwiches and soup for lunch. We had cake when it was someone’s birthday. Dinner was meat (venison or chicken or fish), potatoes or rice and a vegetable most of the time. Sometimes a casserole if I was running late. When the garden was exploding in August, we had fresh tomato and pepper salads, corn on the cob and BLTs. I mean, for WEEKS, LOL! Sometimes we’d have “breakfast for supper” if husband and I were broke. sometimes there was a pot of soup on the stove for a week; I just added scraps to it every day. The boys didn’t know the difference and it wasn’t their business what we could “afford” to serve them at any given time, anyway.
I suppose that kind of ‘draconian child-rearing’ would land me in jail these days. *SMIRK* Two are computer experts, one is a mechanic. All admirable, family-obtaining and Old-Age Mother Supporting occupations, LOL! :)
And fainting at the smell of orange juice? That little twit is going to make some therapist incredibly wealthy in the near future, LOL!
P.S. My MIL fed a family of FOURTEEN for years on end. I owe a debt of gratitude to her. She took me under her wing when I was a novice wife and mother. God Bless You, Geraldine! :)
I was never a picky eater as a kid. I ate sardines and brussel sprouts, no complaining, even if I didn’t like something very much. I’m not picky now, either.
My niece and nephew and their dad are very picky eaters. I just don’t understand people who are picky, and especially those who won’t eat certain desserts! I mean, is there really such a thing as a bad cake? It makes family gatherings a PITA for the host.
You make some good points.
In response to the challenge of your last sentence, I can think of good things that are in fashion now. I'm not too nostalgic for the past.
We have talk radio, the internet, and very cheap air travel -- all of which are nice. Speaking of food, supermarkets today are just fantastic. Medical science is far ahead of where it was not long ago -- that's great. The U.S. military is quite "in fashion" these days -- unlike the 60's or the 30's -- and I call that a good thing.
Overall, I think there are ups and downs with every time period.
Great comments — thanks!
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“May I be excused?”
I'll eat damn near anything if somebody else fixes it. ;-)
My father gave up making me eat vegetables, or even coaxing me, after I ate five okra rockets and re-launched them a few minutes later. Then there was trying to be polite and eat cooked spinach in a restaurant and getting a strand the length of my throat that would go neither up or down. I figure it’s cruelty to force a child to eat anything mushy, slimy or sulfurous.
There’s a lot I could not eat when I was pregnant and the revulsion lasted months post-partum for me - so if it lasted several years for my children, so be it.
Vegetables were disgusting until I learned to shop and cook myself - always fresh now, and barely stir-fried. Organ meats, sushi and boiled beets, okra and spinach are on the won’t-even-try-list, and ever shall be.
So there, I say to all my elders, here and gone, who always ate everything on their plates and were grateful for it.
Mrs VS
I always wondered about that. My son at least ate cheese pizza and sometimes spaghetti with very plain sauce. Tomato sauce is apparently pretty good for you. And he got protein from milk and cheese products. And I made sure he had vitamins. He grew up big and strong enough but he is a little overweight. He himself feels that his diet is probably shortening his life considerably, but he finds it incredibly hard to change for some reason.
Noodles and french fries alone does sound dangerously unhealthy.
My mom made a good creamed spinach, with sour cream and onions, yum! And my favorite salad dressing for a while as a kid? Blue cheese, LOL!
My father gave up making me eat vegetables, or even coaxing me, after I ate five okra rockets and re-launched them a few minutes later. Then there was trying to be polite and eat cooked spinach in a restaurant and getting a strand the length of my throat that would go neither up or down. I figure it’s cruelty to force a child to eat anything mushy, slimy or sulfurous.
There’s a lot I could not eat when I was pregnant and the revulsion lasted months post-partum for me - so if it lasted several years for my children, so be it.
Vegetables were disgusting until I learned to shop and cook myself - always fresh now, and barely stir-fried. Organ meats, sushi and boiled beets, okra and spinach are on the won’t-even-try-list, and ever shall be.
So there, I say to all my elders, here and gone, who always ate everything on their plates and were grateful for it.
Mrs VS
Sorry Skylark, I was thinking more in terms of ‘families’ and not progress in other things.
There were many good radio shows way back and TV was safe for children to view.
Families took long trips by car to their vacation destinations - another time to be together and talk.
Yes, there are ups and downs with every generation but many good family things have been lost.
There have been a few times recently when you would have been ‘GROUNDED’!!
I never had a bad experience w/ BBQ sauce, but it now nauseates me. It’s one of the few condiments I will send food contaminated with back to the kitchen (that and piggy, but that’s a minor allergy).
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Under-Grounded?
Never that!
Spanked, but that sounds too kinky, lol.
put ‘em on a see-food diet. You see it, you eat it, or you go hungry.
Thank you. I think my two boys only made a PB&J sandwich for themselves about one or two times each. They finally decided that making the sandwich was more trouble than trying to eat spinach casserole or whatever was on the menu.
And as for other arguments in life, it worked just as well. Confronted with two choices (one of which they KNEW was my choice), they knew they could adopt the alternative, but would have to live with the consequences. It's worked for us many years.
Me too! Only, I now will even eat it cooked in something like spinach dip or lasagna.
I can STILL smell that horrific cooked, canned, spinach that they served at school...I gagged every time I was near the cafeteria. Same with butterscotch pudding....ICK!
By the way, I am quite a picky eater. Not picky at all about any type of food...very picky about how it was prepared and by whom.
An example: I purchased a pound of ham at a local grocery deli the other day. Only after I ordered, did I realize that the woman who was handling the food was sick as a dog...coughing, sneezing, etc. Took it home, and threw it in the garbage can.
It is shocking how many food service people go to work when they are ill...I distrust most restaurant food for that reason. I am probably crazy...but ending up in the hospital with food poisoning will do that to you.
I am the parent of a 20yo and a 17yo.
Just like my wife and I the foods they hated as children they hate today.
As to the “eat the crap on your plate or I’ll beat your ass” attitude that my parent had, I have not seen them in 13 years and will not attend their funeral when they die. Not just for this only, but for the other arrogant crap too.
My mother would not let me eat raw vegetables because she was so damned ignorant that she thought that if she boiled all of the vitamins out of them they were better for us.
I got my revenge the last time that they set the timer and told me that if the navy beans were not eaten in five minutes I would get a beating and then get to go finish them. I finished the beans and then threw up all over the table.
It is not hard to not be a prick and pick a menu that we all agree on. It is not different menus, it is being intelligent and knowing how to cook.
Note: My poor daughter has a 3.9 GPA and has triple lettered in sports. They both also love me.
I'm sorry, but you are going to have to explain that response to me as if I were a third grader.
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