Are you a fussy eater or do you have one in the family? My granddaughter has become fussy as a child although she would eat anything as a baby. Consequently she refuses to eat anything different that I might buy which results in a lot of waste. When I was young I had two options 'Take it or leave it' but she would rather not eat than have something she dislikes. Does anyone else have experience with a fussy eater and do you have any suggestions?
I'm not going to be much help here, but all you can do is give a little of what they will eat or mix it in so they can't tell. My dad is a fussy eater and he goes off some things and it can be hard because then we have a freezer full of food he doesn't want to eat, even though he bought it. In trying to teach children to eat it starts early and it's best to tell them that's all there is. Otherwise bribery with a nice pudding if they finish their main works. Old fashioned, but sometimes that's all you can do.
I guess I am fussy eater. I seem to make a lot of complains whether I am eating at home or in a restaurant. This is so because I am very choosy. The only time when I don;t fuss a lot is when I am eating the food that I cooked myself. My mother says, I was a pliant eater when I was a child or a teenager. taste changes, behavior changes, now I am a fussy eater.
I'm a fuzzy eater and so is my three year old who would eat anything when she was a baby. She is picky with almost all fruits so what I do is make them into juice instead as she won't eat them as they are. For any food she is picky of I just mix it with other foods she actually enjoy. It all comes to giving them what they don't like in another way.
@kamai I think with little ones it is often about texture rather than taste but I worry that she is not getting enough nutrients. She hates all veg although she does eat fruit like strawberries and raspberries. She's a healthy 10 year old and rarely gets ill so I suppose she must be getting enough of what she needs in her diet.
I was a fussy eater when I was little and I will be too picky about foods especially fruits and veggies. Sometimes I will be hungry rather than eat the one I dislike the most. But now I have changed but my brother has become like that.
I'm not a fussy eater, but I have a close friend who is and I cannot understand him. Anyway, though, my biggest experience with fussy eaters involves animals. Our cat and dog are picky and simply won't eat anything given to them. Oh, by the way, I don't think to be fussy will cause one to save less. It's just a silly way of thinking.
Yes! My youngest son was the fussy eater. This child only wanted grilled cheese, chicken nuggets, apples, plain pasta, and a few other very plain items. We had a pediatrician tell us "if he is hungry, he will eat it". Was he ever wrong? This child was so stubborn that he wouldn't eat for 2 days at a time. Next, I consulted with a colleague and she gave me some creative ideas to try to introduce new foods into his diet. Some of them worked, some didn't. Is child is now 20 years old and still eats hamburgers plain and dry, spaghetti with no sauce and chicken nuggets!
We don't have any fussy eaters in our family, so I have no experience on that matter. I think you really have no choice but to just buy what they normally eat, since if they don't like it then they seem adamant to not eat it.
@littlewitch66 I do have experience with fussy eaters because I am one! What I have found is that there are a few simple things you can do to disarm the psychology behind fussy eating. There's no one-size-fits-all remedy, and children are known to broaden their tastes with time, but if you give these things a try you may be able to make some headway with this problem. Textures Some people are more influenced by the texture of foods than others. The trouble with this is that a child may lack the sophistication to be able to put that into words so you will probably need to do some experimentation to find out what textures they find pleasant. One tip I can offer is that mushy vegetables tend to be a bit of a turn off for kids. If you're over cooking them or using a lot of canned vegetables, try switching to frozen and fresh varieties. If you don't over cook them veggies tend to retain more of their natural sweetness which will be more palatable to children who have an inborn craving for sugars. Also, it helps to learn to clean your meats thoroughly. Kids can be easily off-put by the gloppy texture of fats, and the crunch of gristle. If you remove these connective tissues when the meat is raw it will be much more palatable for them. Familiarity Some people will have a negative reaction to finding bits they can not identify in their food. Children, especially, tend to love homogeneous textures. An easy way to alleviate this anxiety is to involve them in cooking their food. If they can see that those strange crunchy bits of diced onion are just a plant you've cut up, it may help them feel more comfortable with what's on their plate. Let them shake the oregano bottle themselves so they can see the little green flakes are just diced up leaves that make things taste delicious. When they understand that their food is okay, that psychological block to eating it will ease. Fun No matter what you do, some fussy eaters simply won't budge. For those especially difficult ones, you can try making a game of it. Maybe they won't eat a whole serving of their green beans, but you can try having them eat just three or four at a time to get some kind of small reward. Maybe that's how you have them earn their dessert! Applaud them when they succeed, make a big deal about how good they've done so they learn to associate healthy foods with feeling good. Negative reinforcement only serves to further alienate an unpleasant food from a child's mind so try to always keep meal-time light hearted. I hope some of this has helped you and I wish you luck with your little fussy eater!
@Punkin That's a great post and I can identify with a lot of the points you make. My son was a fairly fussy eater but now he is grown and knows what it's like to be really hungry he will eat almost anything so I do think that age takes care of a lot of it for many people. Some people never change though, I know a person who complains about her food in a restaurent all the time. I feel quite uncomfortable if we go out with her because I can never see anything wrong with it.
We have a 6 years old in our family who is perhaps the fussiest one I have seen in my life. He has very few things which he eats and doesn't even want to try anything which he should. We have to pursue him constantly even for his regular limited food choices and to top it all he brings all his food items from school except eating a few pieces of fruits and bread with butter or Vegemite.
I might be a fussy eater for all I know, but after years of routine and habit forming it would be hard to figure out really until thrown into an unknown place or something. Now that I think about it, I bet we all are to some degree.
@larryl332 as far I am personally concerned I am good at eating whatever is offered to me. I used to be one during my younger days but when I saw my wife ate almost everything that I disliked so I started taking interest in those things and ate everything what she cooked or liked to eat outside. I never wanted to force her eat what I liked.
I remember my niece who is always fussy about food. She only likes beverages and would rather go hungry that take any solid food. One day my sister took her to a doctor to make sure whether she was healthy.
My son used to be a fussy eater as a little child and he won't even eat usual favorites such as fried chicken back then. I didn't let him have his way, though, and he had to eat whatever food is on his plate, no matter how long it took him to finish. We just didn't allow him to leave the table until he has eaten his food. I made sure that we prepare foods that are 'kid-friendly' and didn't force him to consume dishes that only adults would enjoy so he had no valid reason to reject them. Early on, I explained the benefits of eating vegetables and fruits. When he learned to watch the news and heard about his favorite celebrity dying because of cancer, I used the situation to explain the benefits of eating a balanced diet and exercising to prevent cancer.
I am a little bit half and half on fussy eaters. I generally like to it basic foods like burgers, pizza, spaghetti, cheesteaks etc. My opinion is to find out what she does like to eat and try to give it to her, but not too often. Try to get her to try something new, you don't have to do anything fancy and make a luxurious meal for her just get her to at least try more basic or convenient meals. Don't bend to her will, otherwise you might end up with a lot of stress and empty pockets.
I am not a fussy eater per se. I just have a very sensitive stomach. Which means I can't eat leftover food that is more than a day old and I have to very careful or picky about where I eat outside my home. So I can eat everything and anything but it has to be freshly made and made from extremely clean environments.
