The myth of picky eating

Before refrigeration, moms cooked meals from scratch with local, in-season ingredients—and children happily ate them. But no longer. Today children routinely demand alternatives to the family dinner, and parents typically comply. It’s a frustrating situation, but parents assume this is a normal part of childhood.

In Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History (St. Martin’s Press, 304 pp.), historian Helen Zoe Veit shows it’s not. Exploring 200 years of eating history, she exposes the myths that created the pickiness that plagues so many modern families.

Until recently, adults expected children to eat the same food they did. That’s because nearly all children did, enjoying spicy, briny, saucy, varied, flavorful foods. They took an active part in growing, harvesting, and preparing meals. Snacking on anything other than foraged fruit and nuts was unheard of, and thanks to chores, outdoor play, and walking everywhere, children typically came to the table “appreciatively hungry,” eager to eat what was set before them.

But in the 19th century, “experts” began directing parents to feed children special foods based on unscientific fears and theories. In the mid-20th century, psychologists claimed—without evidence—that children would naturally choose the foods their bodies most needed and that forcing (or even encouraging) children to eat what they didn’t initially prefer would do long-term damage.

Then, came television. Suddenly food companies were marketing high-calorie, highly palatable “factory foods” directly to children. Snacking between meals became common even as television watching cut into outdoor playtime where children could burn calories.

Not only is picky eating abnormal, it undermines children’s nutritional needs and “sets them up for decades of subpar eating habits in the future,” even as it “deprives them of joy right now.” After 176 pages of lively, readable history, Veit’s epilogue, “Happy Meals,” offers solid advice for breaking the pattern of picky eating. She says parents should confidently, repeatedly encourage children to try new things, limit snacking between meals, and let an unwilling eater leave the table hungry. It’s shockingly countercultural, and refreshingly wise.

Kids used to eat the strangest things, by modern standards. But “the way we feed children now,” Veit says, is what’s truly “bizarre, harmful, and unnecessary.” Picky shows that gaining historical perspective can “feel like a superpower,” restoring the confidence parents need to help their children learn how to eat broadly and happily, for the good of the whole family.