Three articles on pickiness
Oct. 17th, 2007 09:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
One on expatriate Americans, and the diets of their children. A bit over-dramatic
One on that book teaching adults how to hide food so their kids will eat it.
One on the genetic basis of pickiness
Picky Eaters? They Get It From You
By KIM SEVERSON
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.
According to the report, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent environmental.
''People have really dismissed this as an idea because they have been looking at the social associations between parents and their children,'' Dr. Cooke said. ''I came from a position of not wanting to blame parents.''
Nutritionists, pediatricians and academic researchers have recently shifted focus to children who eat too much instead of those who eat too little. But cases of obesity are less frequent than bouts of pickiness.
In some families, communal meals become brutal battlegrounds, if they haven't been altogether abandoned. Cooks break under the weight of devising a thousand variations on macaroni and cheese. Strolls through the farmers' markets are replaced with trudges through the frozen food aisle.
For parents who know that sharing the fruits of the kitchen with family is one of the deep pleasures of cooking, having a child who rejects most food is a unique sort of heartbreak.
Hugh Garvey, an editor at Bon Appétit magazine, knows the heartbreak firsthand. He shares his experience on gastrokid.com, a blog he created with a British pal that details the gastronomic life of families. His daughter, 6, is an omnivore's dream child. But his son, 3, will eat only brown food.
''The way I comfort myself is the way any quasi-sane parent comforts himself,'' Mr. Garvey said. ''It's like potty training. Eventually, they're going to graduate from diapers. In the end, he'll eat something green.''
Most children eat a wide variety of foods until they are around 2, when they suddenly stop. The phase can last until the child is 4 or 5. It's an evolutionary response, researchers believe. Toddlers' taste buds shut down at about the time they start walking, giving them more control over what they eat. ''If we just went running out of the cave as little cave babies and stuck anything in our mouths, that would have been potentially very dangerous,'' Dr. Cooke said.
A natural skepticism of new foods is a healthy part of a child's development, said Ellyn Satter, a child nutrition expert whose books, including ''Child of Mine: Feeding With Love and Good Sense'' (Bull Publishing, 2000), have developed a cult following among parents of picky eaters.
Each child has a unique set of likes and dislikes that Ms. Satter believes are genetically determined. The only way children discover what they are is by putting food in their mouths and taking it out over and over again, she said.
''Of course, it's hard when children are just so blasé about food or refuse it, especially for parents who spend a lot of time thinking about it and preparing it,'' she said.
The genetic link makes sense to Jennifer Useloff, whose son enjoys only variations on the same theme: bread and cheese, with some fruit and the occasional chicken nugget. His younger sister, Samara, isn't as picky but sometimes follows her brother's lead.
Mrs. Useloff, 36, was once a picky eater herself. Although she drank gallons of milk, she couldn't abide raw fruits or vegetables. New foods with strange textures literally frightened her.
The aversion lasted until her 20s, when she worked to overcome her fears. Even today, she refuses to buy cucumbers.
''I feel guilty,'' she said. ''I worry that I've done this to them.''
Even though food neophobia appears to be genetic, doctors say parents of picky eaters can't just surrender and boil another pot of pasta.
''We have to understand that biology is not destiny,'' said Patricia Pliner, a social psychology professor at the University of Toronto. ''This doesn't necessarily mean there is nothing we can do about the environment.''
People who study children prone to flinging themselves on the floor at the mere mention of broccoli agree that calm, repeated exposure to new foods every day for between five days to two weeks is an effective way to overcome a child's fears. (Other strategies for getting children to eat are included in an accompanying article.)
Of course, attempting to introduce the same food week after week can be a Sisyphean task. Some parents just give up. That is more or less what Jessica Seinfeld did.
Mrs. Seinfeld, the wife of the actor Jerry Seinfeld and the mother of three young children, became fed up with trying to get her children to eat fruits and vegetables. The oldest, Sascha, who is 6, is so picky she used to dictate what the rest of the family ate.
''It made cooking in my house impossible,'' Mrs. Seinfeld said. ''I was so miserable every night. I felt like a failure as a cook and a failure as a mother.''
So Mrs. Seinfeld took an end run around the problem and developed a method of feeding her children that is, essentially, based on lying.
Her new book, ''Deceptively Delicious'' (Harper Collins), outlines a series of recipes based on fruit and vegetable purées that are blended into food in a way that she says children won't notice. Half a cup of butternut squash disappears into pasta coated with milk and margarine. Pancakes turn pink with beets. Avocado hides in chocolate pudding and spinach in brownies.
''My theory, and my husband will back me up on it, is that all of this food tastes better,'' she said.
And even though she admits to leaving a box of macaroni and cheese on the counter when she's making the stealth vegetable version, she doesn't think her children will mind when they discover that mom's pulled a fast one.
''My kids now are really starting to get that this is a special way my mom knows how to cook,'' she said.
Some experts don't buy the method.
''It doesn't strike me as the best strategy,'' Dr. Pliner said.
There is the issue of being found out, at which point a child might not trust new foods the parents present. And hiding foods doesn't help a child learn to appreciate new tastes, she said.
''What we want children to do is like a lot of different foods,'' she said. ''If squash is perfectly disguised, children are not learning anything. Well, they are learning something, but it's not to like squash.''
If neither repeated introduction nor hiding the vegetables works, and as long as a pediatrician is keeping an eye on the child's health, the experts suggest nothing more than patience.
''Unless it becomes a huge issue, it tends to be a little more fleeting than parents think,'' said Harriet Worobey, director of the Nutritional Sciences Preschool at Rutgers University. ''I know a year can seem like five to parents, but these food jags are normal.''
My thoughts:
1. Some of the comments to the NYTimes article are really... ugh. Yes, if you never let your child eat a chicken nugget, they will not refuse to eat anything but. However, that doesn't mean that they won't, instead, fixate on some other food. (As my mother pointed out, they used to have to hide to eat blue cheese when we were kids!)
1b. Some of the *advice* in the comments to the NYTimes article are equally bad. I mean, I'm all for not cooking an extra meal (except when I've intentionally made something I know the kid dislikes, in which case that's common courtesy), and I'm about "none of an extra this unless you at least take a reasonable bite of that" (especially dessert)... but not allowing your kid any of their dinner until the salad is gone? Or they have it for breakfast? And you gloat about how disgusting it is? Not cool. As my mother said, I would never do that to a guest, no matter how obnoxious they were. (I wouldn't give a guest a separate meal, either, so that's consistent.)
2. That said, hiding food certainly doesn't keep kids from being picky. If you're lying to them, how are they going to know that whatever-it-is really tastes good?
One on that book teaching adults how to hide food so their kids will eat it.
One on the genetic basis of pickiness
Picky Eaters? They Get It From You
By KIM SEVERSON
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.
According to the report, 78 percent is genetic and the other 22 percent environmental.
''People have really dismissed this as an idea because they have been looking at the social associations between parents and their children,'' Dr. Cooke said. ''I came from a position of not wanting to blame parents.''
Nutritionists, pediatricians and academic researchers have recently shifted focus to children who eat too much instead of those who eat too little. But cases of obesity are less frequent than bouts of pickiness.
In some families, communal meals become brutal battlegrounds, if they haven't been altogether abandoned. Cooks break under the weight of devising a thousand variations on macaroni and cheese. Strolls through the farmers' markets are replaced with trudges through the frozen food aisle.
For parents who know that sharing the fruits of the kitchen with family is one of the deep pleasures of cooking, having a child who rejects most food is a unique sort of heartbreak.
Hugh Garvey, an editor at Bon Appétit magazine, knows the heartbreak firsthand. He shares his experience on gastrokid.com, a blog he created with a British pal that details the gastronomic life of families. His daughter, 6, is an omnivore's dream child. But his son, 3, will eat only brown food.
''The way I comfort myself is the way any quasi-sane parent comforts himself,'' Mr. Garvey said. ''It's like potty training. Eventually, they're going to graduate from diapers. In the end, he'll eat something green.''
Most children eat a wide variety of foods until they are around 2, when they suddenly stop. The phase can last until the child is 4 or 5. It's an evolutionary response, researchers believe. Toddlers' taste buds shut down at about the time they start walking, giving them more control over what they eat. ''If we just went running out of the cave as little cave babies and stuck anything in our mouths, that would have been potentially very dangerous,'' Dr. Cooke said.
A natural skepticism of new foods is a healthy part of a child's development, said Ellyn Satter, a child nutrition expert whose books, including ''Child of Mine: Feeding With Love and Good Sense'' (Bull Publishing, 2000), have developed a cult following among parents of picky eaters.
Each child has a unique set of likes and dislikes that Ms. Satter believes are genetically determined. The only way children discover what they are is by putting food in their mouths and taking it out over and over again, she said.
''Of course, it's hard when children are just so blasé about food or refuse it, especially for parents who spend a lot of time thinking about it and preparing it,'' she said.
The genetic link makes sense to Jennifer Useloff, whose son enjoys only variations on the same theme: bread and cheese, with some fruit and the occasional chicken nugget. His younger sister, Samara, isn't as picky but sometimes follows her brother's lead.
Mrs. Useloff, 36, was once a picky eater herself. Although she drank gallons of milk, she couldn't abide raw fruits or vegetables. New foods with strange textures literally frightened her.
The aversion lasted until her 20s, when she worked to overcome her fears. Even today, she refuses to buy cucumbers.
''I feel guilty,'' she said. ''I worry that I've done this to them.''
Even though food neophobia appears to be genetic, doctors say parents of picky eaters can't just surrender and boil another pot of pasta.
''We have to understand that biology is not destiny,'' said Patricia Pliner, a social psychology professor at the University of Toronto. ''This doesn't necessarily mean there is nothing we can do about the environment.''
People who study children prone to flinging themselves on the floor at the mere mention of broccoli agree that calm, repeated exposure to new foods every day for between five days to two weeks is an effective way to overcome a child's fears. (Other strategies for getting children to eat are included in an accompanying article.)
Of course, attempting to introduce the same food week after week can be a Sisyphean task. Some parents just give up. That is more or less what Jessica Seinfeld did.
Mrs. Seinfeld, the wife of the actor Jerry Seinfeld and the mother of three young children, became fed up with trying to get her children to eat fruits and vegetables. The oldest, Sascha, who is 6, is so picky she used to dictate what the rest of the family ate.
''It made cooking in my house impossible,'' Mrs. Seinfeld said. ''I was so miserable every night. I felt like a failure as a cook and a failure as a mother.''
So Mrs. Seinfeld took an end run around the problem and developed a method of feeding her children that is, essentially, based on lying.
Her new book, ''Deceptively Delicious'' (Harper Collins), outlines a series of recipes based on fruit and vegetable purées that are blended into food in a way that she says children won't notice. Half a cup of butternut squash disappears into pasta coated with milk and margarine. Pancakes turn pink with beets. Avocado hides in chocolate pudding and spinach in brownies.
''My theory, and my husband will back me up on it, is that all of this food tastes better,'' she said.
And even though she admits to leaving a box of macaroni and cheese on the counter when she's making the stealth vegetable version, she doesn't think her children will mind when they discover that mom's pulled a fast one.
''My kids now are really starting to get that this is a special way my mom knows how to cook,'' she said.
Some experts don't buy the method.
''It doesn't strike me as the best strategy,'' Dr. Pliner said.
There is the issue of being found out, at which point a child might not trust new foods the parents present. And hiding foods doesn't help a child learn to appreciate new tastes, she said.
''What we want children to do is like a lot of different foods,'' she said. ''If squash is perfectly disguised, children are not learning anything. Well, they are learning something, but it's not to like squash.''
If neither repeated introduction nor hiding the vegetables works, and as long as a pediatrician is keeping an eye on the child's health, the experts suggest nothing more than patience.
''Unless it becomes a huge issue, it tends to be a little more fleeting than parents think,'' said Harriet Worobey, director of the Nutritional Sciences Preschool at Rutgers University. ''I know a year can seem like five to parents, but these food jags are normal.''
My thoughts:
1. Some of the comments to the NYTimes article are really... ugh. Yes, if you never let your child eat a chicken nugget, they will not refuse to eat anything but. However, that doesn't mean that they won't, instead, fixate on some other food. (As my mother pointed out, they used to have to hide to eat blue cheese when we were kids!)
1b. Some of the *advice* in the comments to the NYTimes article are equally bad. I mean, I'm all for not cooking an extra meal (except when I've intentionally made something I know the kid dislikes, in which case that's common courtesy), and I'm about "none of an extra this unless you at least take a reasonable bite of that" (especially dessert)... but not allowing your kid any of their dinner until the salad is gone? Or they have it for breakfast? And you gloat about how disgusting it is? Not cool. As my mother said, I would never do that to a guest, no matter how obnoxious they were. (I wouldn't give a guest a separate meal, either, so that's consistent.)
2. That said, hiding food certainly doesn't keep kids from being picky. If you're lying to them, how are they going to know that whatever-it-is really tastes good?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 02:46 am (UTC)I must admit, I've been fascinated by Barbara's stories about her baby daughter's experiences with food. It just seems so natural that a child would want to eat what Mommy and Daddy are eating, and would be capable of enjoying it -- after all, wouldn't it be evolutionarily advantageous for a child to be able to eat the solid foods everyone in her family/tribe eats? I doubt kids' stomachs are as sensitive as Americans seem to think.
Of course, once people reach adulthood having been indulged with bland foods, there's not much that can fix it. I have a friend who trained himself through desensitization to eat spicy foods, because he was tired of not being able to eat even mild salsa, but he's sort of in the minority.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:03 am (UTC)Also, Gastrokid. Angelique and Evangeline love munching on raw cabbage. They won't eat my (nummy, but perhaps somewhat overspiced this time, though they liked it well enough before dinner) coleslaw, but they love the cabbage. I could hardly cut the stuff!
As for indulgence, I don't know. I always tell Angelique, and her friend Deniz, if they try something 10 times, they'll start to like it - and that I *know* it's true, because that's what happened with me and eggplants, and me and green peppers. I made a conscious choice to eat those things so they wouldn't be so abhorrant to me, and now I love them both (seriously). This year, I'm tackling beets. I have one or two authentic red velvet cake recipes that might help in that respect.... (I don't want to hide the beets, just make their taste more palatable for a first effort. Beet cake seemed a decent option.)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:53 am (UTC)As far as the trying thing goes, I know I tried moussaka at least ten times and never liked it -- same with borscht and anything containing boiled spinach -- but my mom never let that stop her. She was going to cook what she and Dad liked and that was it. Oh, sometimes she cooked stuff that she and I liked and Dad didn't, but the basic principle was that as long as she was cooking, she'd make whatever she damn well pleased. I've adopted this same principle in my household; fortunately, Charles is not a picky eater at all, though he can't handle spices the way I can (not that my tolerance is all that great, or anything, but it's way better than his).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 11:24 pm (UTC)If someone hides a food I refuse to eat because I find it repulsive in my food, I will lose all trust for them and hate them.
An honest mistake, I can forgive. I'm vegetarian (which is linked to the above, eating animal flesh is repulsive to me) and I forgave my sister for forgetting that the salad dressing she was using had anchovy in it until after I tasted a bite and commented on how it tasted fishy. But had she deliberately tried to make me eat anchovy, I'd have stopped eating her cooking.
And it is extreme. I will not eat to the point of health issues if no appropriate food is available. The let me get hungry enough thing will not work. I can trade sleep for food for a while, until I get to a point that I don't have much energy and then can't function. And I've done that when no food was available and I couldn't easily obtain any.
So, I am very leery of forcing a kid to eat anything. However, if your kid just doesn't like the taste of something; I'd be okay saying, try it in this other form. My lothario thought he didn't like sweet potatoes because he'd only ever had them in that disgustingly sweet marhsmallow casserole thing people sometimes do for Thanksgiving. When he tried a baked sweet potato he realized he was fine with them in several forms. And I think encouraging kids to not think of a food as just one thing, but many different things depending on how you prepare it is good. Raw cheese and melted cheese are very different, and I've met two people who only like one and not the other (one with each preference).
I think if you encourage the kids to not judge a food by one type of dish, that'd be helpful. Then get them saying things like: I don't like cooked spinach, but raw spinach is good on sandwiches. Or whatever is relevant to them.
I don't like packaged orange juice, but fresh-squeezed is rather nice, and a good freshly juiced orange-banana juice is lovely.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:20 am (UTC)Solid food, to me, once you get past the basic 'are they allergic' stage of feeding, is just whatever everyone else has, in non choking condition (mashed or smushed or cut up small).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 02:51 am (UTC)My parents were ready to accommodate as well as encourage healthy habits in us without forcing us to eat things we confirmedly didn't like. They didn't have to hide anything, since they tried to also keep healthier snacks around for themselves. Bless them, my sister and Dad and I all have different tastes, so it wasn't uncommon for Mom to cook 5 things at supper and one or two of those things left untouched by each of us. We'd still end up eating a well-rounded meal. It's still true to this day. I'm glad to have grown up with tastes for some things that really are good for me. Sure I still indulge in junk too often, but eh, at least then I do go for junk with SOME nutritional quality. *LOL*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:23 am (UTC)If your goal is to make them less picky, though, which some people seem to think is what they're doing... that ain't gonna work the way they think.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:27 am (UTC)Hiding food won't make kids less picky at all. Maybe more so because they feel indulged, now.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 04:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 02:46 am (UTC)I must admit, I've been fascinated by Barbara's stories about her baby daughter's experiences with food. It just seems so natural that a child would want to eat what Mommy and Daddy are eating, and would be capable of enjoying it -- after all, wouldn't it be evolutionarily advantageous for a child to be able to eat the solid foods everyone in her family/tribe eats? I doubt kids' stomachs are as sensitive as Americans seem to think.
Of course, once people reach adulthood having been indulged with bland foods, there's not much that can fix it. I have a friend who trained himself through desensitization to eat spicy foods, because he was tired of not being able to eat even mild salsa, but he's sort of in the minority.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:03 am (UTC)Also, Gastrokid. Angelique and Evangeline love munching on raw cabbage. They won't eat my (nummy, but perhaps somewhat overspiced this time, though they liked it well enough before dinner) coleslaw, but they love the cabbage. I could hardly cut the stuff!
As for indulgence, I don't know. I always tell Angelique, and her friend Deniz, if they try something 10 times, they'll start to like it - and that I *know* it's true, because that's what happened with me and eggplants, and me and green peppers. I made a conscious choice to eat those things so they wouldn't be so abhorrant to me, and now I love them both (seriously). This year, I'm tackling beets. I have one or two authentic red velvet cake recipes that might help in that respect.... (I don't want to hide the beets, just make their taste more palatable for a first effort. Beet cake seemed a decent option.)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:53 am (UTC)As far as the trying thing goes, I know I tried moussaka at least ten times and never liked it -- same with borscht and anything containing boiled spinach -- but my mom never let that stop her. She was going to cook what she and Dad liked and that was it. Oh, sometimes she cooked stuff that she and I liked and Dad didn't, but the basic principle was that as long as she was cooking, she'd make whatever she damn well pleased. I've adopted this same principle in my household; fortunately, Charles is not a picky eater at all, though he can't handle spices the way I can (not that my tolerance is all that great, or anything, but it's way better than his).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-25 11:24 pm (UTC)If someone hides a food I refuse to eat because I find it repulsive in my food, I will lose all trust for them and hate them.
An honest mistake, I can forgive. I'm vegetarian (which is linked to the above, eating animal flesh is repulsive to me) and I forgave my sister for forgetting that the salad dressing she was using had anchovy in it until after I tasted a bite and commented on how it tasted fishy. But had she deliberately tried to make me eat anchovy, I'd have stopped eating her cooking.
And it is extreme. I will not eat to the point of health issues if no appropriate food is available. The let me get hungry enough thing will not work. I can trade sleep for food for a while, until I get to a point that I don't have much energy and then can't function. And I've done that when no food was available and I couldn't easily obtain any.
So, I am very leery of forcing a kid to eat anything. However, if your kid just doesn't like the taste of something; I'd be okay saying, try it in this other form. My lothario thought he didn't like sweet potatoes because he'd only ever had them in that disgustingly sweet marhsmallow casserole thing people sometimes do for Thanksgiving. When he tried a baked sweet potato he realized he was fine with them in several forms. And I think encouraging kids to not think of a food as just one thing, but many different things depending on how you prepare it is good. Raw cheese and melted cheese are very different, and I've met two people who only like one and not the other (one with each preference).
I think if you encourage the kids to not judge a food by one type of dish, that'd be helpful. Then get them saying things like: I don't like cooked spinach, but raw spinach is good on sandwiches. Or whatever is relevant to them.
I don't like packaged orange juice, but fresh-squeezed is rather nice, and a good freshly juiced orange-banana juice is lovely.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:20 am (UTC)Solid food, to me, once you get past the basic 'are they allergic' stage of feeding, is just whatever everyone else has, in non choking condition (mashed or smushed or cut up small).
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 02:51 am (UTC)My parents were ready to accommodate as well as encourage healthy habits in us without forcing us to eat things we confirmedly didn't like. They didn't have to hide anything, since they tried to also keep healthier snacks around for themselves. Bless them, my sister and Dad and I all have different tastes, so it wasn't uncommon for Mom to cook 5 things at supper and one or two of those things left untouched by each of us. We'd still end up eating a well-rounded meal. It's still true to this day. I'm glad to have grown up with tastes for some things that really are good for me. Sure I still indulge in junk too often, but eh, at least then I do go for junk with SOME nutritional quality. *LOL*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:23 am (UTC)If your goal is to make them less picky, though, which some people seem to think is what they're doing... that ain't gonna work the way they think.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 03:27 am (UTC)Hiding food won't make kids less picky at all. Maybe more so because they feel indulged, now.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-18 04:23 am (UTC)