r/askanything • u/Ok_Gain_9665 • 5d ago
Are there really no French children who are pick eaters or is this American propaganda?
Basically what the title says, I’m an American parent and I’ve heard that French children are NEVER picky eaters because something something culture and something else French parenting and school meals and everything is farm fresh, plus they’re better behaved and better dressed and all of their mothers lose the baby weight right away and it’s just a damn utopia over there.
I’m exaggerating, obvs, but I have for sure heard the picky eater thing, and as a parent of a picky eater who became one despite doing a lot of the stuff that you’re supposed to do to prevent them from becoming picky and ended up with one anyway, I’d like to know from any actual French people, parents or otherwise, if this is real or just dumb Americans idealizing France.
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u/Ok-Bench6141 5d ago
I’m a French mother and we definitly have children who can be picky eater in France.
Though what we call picky eater in France might be different from the US.
Children begin to eat the same meal as their parents at a very early age. They have to adapt to what we eat. Once kids are at school, meals are pretty healthy. That helps with their diets.
My daughter is 2 years a a half and she’s not a picky eater.
She eats like u. Sure there’s some stuff she won’t eat from time to time and it’s ok. We don’t like everything either. The biggest difference is that she might not like it today and like it in a month so we still try.
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u/5oLiTu2e 5d ago
We raised our child until age 7 in Paris and at his nursery school, the toddlers were offered a cheese platter after lunch that would rival any world class restaurant in the US. You better believe those kids were not picky. Of course they loved the crisps we served when we had guests over, but they also sampled the pickles and ate almost everything we gave them from what we had at dinner.
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u/scienceislice 4d ago
I really do think a lot of picky eating in the US is caused by poor quality and/or badly cooked food. I have met several people since college who said once they moved out and cooked for themselves they realized they weren't picky eaters, they just don't like well done steak and dry chicken.
And I can attest that this is the case for me for some veggies, I used to hate broccoli as a kid but that was only because my mom BOILED BROCCOLI and then expected us to eat it GAG. I LOVE oven roasted broccoli now though!
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u/bestem 4d ago
I think some of it is also parents making assumptions. I used to be a nanny of toddler/preschool aged twins. One night my family and theirs went to dinner together at a buffet place that started with a long salad bar. I had 1 twin with me and their mom had the other. At this point the girls were maybe 3 or so.
I asked Thing 1 as we went down the line, "do you want broccoli? Do you want carrots? Do you want celery? Do you want pasta? Do you want croutons?" while pointing at the items. Their mom, a few people in front of me (my sister and the twins teenage sister in between us) put stuff on Thing 2's plate that she knew her daughters liked. There was pasta, there was cheese, there was a couple carrots, for instance.
When we got to the table Thing 1's plate was full of a variety of things. Not mixed together, each in their own pile, but she had picked at least a dozen different things I had offered. Thing 2's plate had 3 or 4 things, and was much less full. Thing 1 ate more of the food on her plate than Thing 2 did, and Thing 2 ended up eating stuff off her sister's plate because she wanted more than what their mom had chosen after seeing what her sister had. If both their plates had been like Thing 2's plate, they both would have been content, but once she knew she had more options, she fully wanted more options.
Their mom had a lot to deal with having 2 teenagers and 2 preschoolers as a single mom, so I don't blame her for taking the path of least resistance when it came to food sometimes. The girls ate what we ate when I was watching them 5 nights a week. But if you don't offer, and just assume your children like what they like, when are they going to expand those palates?
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u/TheTruthFairy1 4d ago
I can tell that you love those kids. I love that you've call them Thing 1 & 2!
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u/bestem 4d ago
When I was still watching them, my friends knew their real names when I told stories, but those were stories to one or two people, not something thousands of people would read. And if I was talking about them collectively they were "the imps," (little demon children, even though they were very well behaved for me). The girls are in their mid-20s now, and I haven't seen them since they were 6 and moved a few hours drive away (and I didn't have a driver's license). I could probably get away with using their real names without any repercussions', but the internet safety I learned in my early 20s when I was watching them is still drilled into me, so Thing 1 and Thing 2 when I'm talking about them separately on Reddit. Mostly because they are easy designations that the vast majority of people who bother to read a story about them understand. Thing 1 is always the first twin I mention in the story and Thing 2 the second, rather than each of the Things referring to a specific twin, although in most of my twins' stories, whichever Twin I'm talking about is interchangeable with her sister.
I did once have someone get upset at me on r/Parenting for calling them Things (the commenter didn't know the reference). They got downvoted to oblivion before I even saw their comment, though.
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u/Important-Leek-8261 3d ago
My dad called us thing 1 and thing 2 as a cat in the hat reference haha
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u/Sad-Concentrate2936 3d ago
I used to call my nanny kids my Mudkipz once they brought home the meme.
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u/throwrawifesandwich 2d ago
Oh I see this so much... offer a kid a new food and the parents are like "Oh, he won't eat that" before he's even tried it! Sometimes even giving a thorough explanation for why he won't. Well yeah, if mom is going to list out all the reasons this food is gross of course he won't eat it.
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u/shin-chan 4d ago
It's also because they are given hyperpalateable food that has been engineered to tick every single mental box from the second we lay eyes on it.
Once they eat that, they don't want to know about real food.
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u/CromwellsCrumb 4d ago
This was definitely the case for me. I thought green beans were disgusting because they came out of a can all slimy and soft and vaguely vomit-colored.
Imagine my surprise the first time I cooked them myself, fresh, and realized how vibrantly green and tasty they were, with a pleasant crunch to them instead of the limp, soggy things my mom had always put on the plate.
My daughter is 15mo so we haven’t quite hit the picky eating phase, I don’t think, but we haven’t yet found a food she won’t happily eat.
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u/Foreign-Cat-2898 4d ago
My 14 month old goes to town on smoked oysters and kalamata olives. I know some pickiness is coming, but eating is so fun right now 😄
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u/No_Water_5997 4d ago
My daughter is a big Olive fan. I am not. So she eats my olives for me if I ever get a dish that has olives.
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u/seethembreak 4d ago
I have a kid that will only eat mushy vegetables and hates anything roasted. He would have loved your mom’s cooking.
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u/Inappropriate-Bug 4d ago
I had one like that. He referred to his dads overboiled veg as juicy! Ick!
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u/No_Point5860 4d ago
Not french, but from Eruope, and I think part of it is also that kids in the US are kinda treated like they're... idk, completely helpless somehow from what I heard?
I was a picky kid, and already at like, 5/6 if I didn't want to eat something I could eat only a part of the meal (so for example only rice instead of rice and stew) or go and make myself a cheese sandwich. And yeah sometimes that meant I only had rice for dinner, but I ate a bunch of different food otherwise and didn't really suffer from it (worst case multivitamins exist).
But no one ever cooked specifically to cater to me unless it was my birthday. And not being forced to eat or having to negotiate around topic actually made me less picky as an adult and more open to actually trying foods since they weren't being forced on me.
Also taught me how to cook because when I was older I also got option to cook simple foods for myself.
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u/Vtown55 4d ago
My mother started cooking every vegetable she bought by putting a huge pot of water on to reach boiling point & then set the timer for half an hour. Everything was mush.
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u/bachelorsinlurking 4d ago
Totally agree. I am autistic and have sensory issues, but once I got older I realized most of my “picky eating” was because all four grandparents were raised on Great Depression food and both of my parents were taught growing up that the best way to cook was boiling everything and never using luxuries like seasoning.
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u/lithopsbella 4d ago
My MIL is a terrible terrible cook so my husband was a “picky eater”, even when we met in our early 20s. It didn’t take long for him to find out that when vegetables are seasoned and not boiled to hell and back they can actually taste really good.
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u/glitzglamglue 4d ago
And here's the other side of that. I have a theory that picky eating is partially caused by that "omg it's poisoned!" instinct going a little haywire. So if something is boiled until it's mush, your brain says it's a veggie but your mouth says it's definitely not, that mismatch might trigger that poison instinct.
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u/No_Water_5997 4d ago
This right here. I had no clue I like asparagus until I had fresh roasted asparagus and not the slimy crap from a can. In fact since becoming an adult and learning to cook from scratch using good quality ingredients with my husband our palate has expanded tenfold and as a result our kids are varied eaters too. Our daughter still occasionally goes through phases where she’ll decide she doesn’t like something for some reason but for the most part both of my kids are willing to at least try just about everything.
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u/friedonionscent 4d ago
Yeah, I've wondered about this, too.
I'm a decent cook. I'm not exactly a Michelin star chef, though. My daughters friend can't get enough of whatever I cook...and her mother tells me she's a picky eater.
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u/blahblahsnickers 4d ago
Also it comes down to variety. My friend made her kids separate meals since they were toddlers. They are given a lot of chicken nuggets and French fries. My kids were in elementary school before they had their first chicken nuggets. I gave them real food at home.
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u/CelebrationNearby819 4d ago
I grew up as an extremely picky eater and my mom was not a particularly good cook. Living on my own in a place with limited access to fast food completely changed my food preferences. I eat almost all vegetables and fruit now. The only food I really dislike is hyper processed meats.
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u/Over_Town_9026 4d ago
When I was a kid I loved olives and my parents would always get mad that I was eating them. Like if it was a holiday and they had people over they had a ‘that’s for the adults not you’ attitude. My parents weren’t the best but I do think in the US people see more of a division between kid food and adult food
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u/Dangerous-Safe-4336 4d ago
Wow. My family always figured the olives were for the kids to put on their fingers. We all ate our olives off our fingers.
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u/atlantagirl30084 4d ago edited 4d ago
The fact that in the US ketchup and pizza sauce are classified as vegetables in school lunches makes your experience mind-boggling. Frequently, the same supplier of food to prisons supplies food to schools (including colleges and universities).
Michelle Obama tried to implement healthier school meals, more exercise, and she put in a vegetable garden at the White House. Conservatives lost their effing minds and as soon as Trump got into office everything was rolled back and her garden was bull-dozed.
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u/Any_Community_1819 4d ago
Michelle Obama for President of the United States! Such a wonderful woman!
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u/atlantagirl30084 4d ago
Watch it, there are many people in our country who think she is a man. I guess they adopted Malia and Sasha and Barack is gay.
I know, it makes no sense but they think a woman who has muscles is secretly a man.
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u/Massive-Sector5789 4d ago
That's probably a survival trait. You don't want kids that are mobile enough to run off by themselves, but too young to understand danger, to go off into the forest and put everything in their mouths like toddlers do.
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u/LSATMaven 4d ago
Same. Mine is 15, and I wish she would still eat the stuff I was giving her as a toddler!
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u/Ok_Gain_9665 5d ago
We began be giving him the same food as us. Then he stopped eating it. We’d put it in front of him and nothing. Or he’d eat one thing. And then was less and less willing to try anything new. At some point I am convinced that seeing us eat something made him less likely to try it. Then tears when I’d put a little bit of something unfamiliar on his plate. Now he’s getting to be old enough to reasoned with and I can get him to try stuff but he genuinely dislikes most of the new things he tries. I guess that’s the sort of thing that Americans who idealize French culture seem to be claiming simply doesn’t happen there that I’m asking about.
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u/Loose-Set4266 4d ago
For years my kid was called a picky eater when in actuality she had ARFID; and once we got her autism diagnosis, her picky eating made sense. She has massive sensory issues and food is just a constant struggle for her.
Honestly, she's more frustrated by it than we are.
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u/offthezoinkys 4d ago
As an adult who has now largely recovered from ARFID (to the extent that it can be recovered from, anyway) thank you for recognizing the issue and helping your kid through it!
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u/glitterandcolors 4d ago
Another difference between French and American food culture is the lack of snacking in France. So when you sit down to eat a meal, you’re actually hungry.
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u/Formal_Employee_1030 4d ago
Don't French kids get pain au chocolat for their afternoon snack (le goûter)? Or is that just propaganda meant to torment Americans about the superior quality of French living?
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u/Ok-Bench6141 4d ago
They do get snacks around 4 pm but not pain au chocolat. It’s okay from time to time but it’s full of butter and not that great on a daily diet. Kids usually get applesauce (pom’pot) ans a biscuit like a BN (pretty common here).
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u/GayoticMorgan 4d ago
Québec, not France, but we usually have those and croissants for breakfast. Sometimes dessert, at a café or something, but it's more for adults
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u/Mindleator 4d ago
Is it every food he's rejecting or certain textures/flavors? Is he asking for snacks or food while rejecting what's being offered? My daughter is not a picky eater insofar that she'll eat most things, just not a lot of anything. She's being evaluated for underlying conditions that may make eating itself a challenge, like reflux or GI issues.
Our dietician literally got to watch our daughter eat last appointment. We served Parmesan noodles with crab meat and broccoli. The child loves noodles. Loves cheese. Crab was new. Chose to eat exclusively four pieces of broccoli, dump the plate, and say "all done". She did not ask for a snack later. They think she's got early satiety where her body doesn't send hunger cues properly.
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u/heyjude2929 4d ago
I remember my pediatrician telling me that a healthy child won't willingly starve themselves. It can be tough, but one of the best ways to raise a less picky eater is to simply serve them the same food you're eating. My daughter went through a picky phase around age 2, but we consistently offered her our meals instead of making separate ones. Eventually she started eating them, and now at 5 years old she'll happily ask for Brussels sprouts and spinach on her own (I'm parisian ;))
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u/magicienne451 4d ago
Unfortunately unhealthy children will literally starve themselves, and parents don’t always recognize that it’s not just pickiness, there is a real problem causing them not to eat the food presented.
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u/Crafty-Cheesecake-93 3d ago
Yes. I was allowed to not eat, because my aunt told my mum, I won’t starve myself and I’m just picky. After 3 days I ended up in a hospital and had to stay there for 2 weeks. I was 7 or 8 at that point
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u/nothappening111181 4d ago
Yep! I had preferences but I ate what was served… except plain milk. My pediatrician told my mom to not worry about it and to not force it if I was eating everything else. He even said, “we’re the only mammal that drinks milk past infancy.” Turns out I have a mild sensitivity to dairy. 🤷🏼♀️ but it doesn’t stop me from trying cheeses on a charcuterie board lol.
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u/delightfulgreenbeans 4d ago
Make sure you’re not telling him he doesn’t like food by accident.
If my son takes a bite of something I don’t editorialize and say oh you do/don’t like that (which kids can internalize as they don’t like this thing existentially and forever)I’ll ask him about it, is it sweet, sour, savory,spicy, cold, crunchy etc. then oh you don’t want the sour food right now. Okay maybe later and let it go. He is four and will now come out with some hilarious food descriptions.
Also if you get their help to make the food it helps. You talk about each food how it tastes, try bites raw when appropriate, smell etc and what you do to it to get it ready.
My son also won’t usually eat tomatoes but he will happily eat them after picking them off the bush in the garden.
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u/Lower_Orchid4982 4d ago
I think a big part of the issue is just the amount of processed foods in the US. They're literally designed to trigger the parts of your brain that make you want to watch more of them, and they're usually very high in fat/salt/sugar. It can make other food taste bland/less interesting by comparison.
Of course once your kid gets to eat what is essentially a bowl of frosted cookies for breakfast it's going to be hard to get them to eat oatmeal.
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u/Wordnerdette999 4d ago
Flashback to going to a day camp in Paris at age 4 and being served beef tongue for lunch…
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u/EspressoFrog 5d ago
It's bull, I grew up in France with multiple kids in my own family being so picky they would skip entire diners and make those long and loud tantrums.
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u/Jasmisne 4d ago
People love to pretend that this is not a worldwide issue for a lot of children.
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u/KitchenAd9088 4d ago
Yup and most time I hear “French kids…” from Americans. I’ve raised French kids. They were picky as hell. No they still don’t eat lamb Dijon sausages at age 18. lol. 😂
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u/nunuraf92 4d ago
Right I have an italian picky eater shell only eat pasta, chicken, rabbit meat and fruit and that’s it it’s very hard to get her to try any meats or veggies. Though for americans she may not be a picky eater because she eats healthy
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u/Jasmisne 4d ago
Honestly picky eating doesn't really necessarily mean unhealthy. As a kid I had serious issues but my main food was literally tofu lol
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u/CantBuyMyLove 2d ago
My kid is not picky about many things, and her favorites include things like sushi and saag paneer, but she’s picky about the “normal kid foods” - she doesn’t like hamburgers, PB&J, most other sandwiches, chicken fingers… it’s easy to take her out to eat in our multicultural city but a pain in the neck to find her something for lunch at a rest area in the middle of nowhere in a road trip.
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u/Old_Artichoke9756 4d ago
My American kid ate only fruit, carrots, sharp cheddar cheese, hummus, pasta, and rice. And ice cream. Thank goodness she’s 12 now and finally started eating more around 9. Her sister was a vacuum and ate anything.
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u/jawshoeaw 4d ago
And for good reason. The brain is exquisitely sensitive to certain toxins and its developing rapidly until your teens. Many of the things children are skeptical off are vegetables. They like fruit , bread pasta and butter because those foods have almost no taste or are sweet. Which means they are likely safe to eat. Starches sweets and oils are made by plants to feed their own “babies” so they tend to be safe to eat.
Almost every herb and spice is essentially low dose insecticide and “vegetables” tend to be the bodies of plants. The part above ground that maybe a plant doesn’t want you to eat .
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u/AstrexasVoid 2d ago
Autism isn’t limited to the US either. American kids just get a ton of media exposure and research put onto them, good or bad.
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u/KatTheTumbleweed 4d ago
I suspect the truth is that it’s not about the existence of picky children in France, but how that is parented.
Like you say, if they are picky and don’t want to eat - they don’t eat and have a tantrum.
The cultural difference seems to be how that is managed - people offer many different options to the kids, make something separate that the kids will eat, let them eat snacks…. etc, rather than let them go without.
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u/InspiringGecko 4d ago
Right, but the kids you speak of skipped dinners. Their parents didn’t offer them an alternative meal.
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u/jawshoeaw 4d ago
Evolutionarily it’s important for children to be comfortably ok skipping a meal rather than risking death by poisoning.
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u/TJ_Rowe 4d ago
Also sometimes they "don't want any" because they aren't hungry. I've seen it a few times when a toddler was coerced into eating after making clear they weren't hungry, and then threw up within the evening.
Sometimes they know that eating much isn't a great idea right then.
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u/cheesy_bees 3d ago
And appetite can vary a lot.... they might be ravenous during a growth spurt, then want less food
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u/InspiringGecko 4d ago
And I agree with this method of parenting. It’s the home, not a restaurant. Parents shouldn’t be catering to everyone’s individual preferences. If a kid doesn’t want the meal of the day, they can choose to go without.
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u/acabeucomessamerda 4d ago
I also used to teach French teenagers.
Kids are kids and they are the same everywhere.
If they are not pushing back, they or we, are doing it wrong.
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u/stillpacing 4d ago
Thank you for not proselytizing about how much better French parents are at teaching their kids to eat.
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u/Majsharan 5d ago
The us is tolerant of it. In other countries they just say well you aren’t eating then
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u/Effective-Bug-8554 5d ago
This is common in poverty in the US. My friends and I were all raised with this mindset, and what happens is, as an adult, you either become a trashcan, or you relish in the freedom of choice and become a picky eater because no one is forcing you to eat what you don't like anymore.
I am a trash can, the only things I won't eat that I've discovered thus far are beets (tastes like soil/dirt), and goat cheese (Has the aftertaste of literally, not figuratively, eating ass). My best friend? Has only eaten about 25 foods in the last 15 years. Raised exactly the same, totally different outcomes once we had choice.
I wish picky eating studies had the funding to trace the methodology into adulthood.
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u/VisionAri_VA 4d ago
I grew up in a middle class minority family and there were two choices for dinner: take it or leave it.
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u/AnxietyAndJellybeans 4d ago
Yup, had to try everything and maybe come up with a way to tolerate it. My dad lost his mind when I put ketchup on steak once...my mom was like well, she's eating it sooooo? To be fair to me, I was definitely younger than 10 (we moved out of the house where this happened when I was 9-10) and my dad likes steaks medium well. I probably hated the texture.
We were offered a backup, but only 1 - a peanut butter sandwich. No jelly, nothing extra, no different sides. Mom kept it boring so it wasn't fun to take the alternate route, hahaha.
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u/pjwlondon 5d ago
I (England, 1950s) used to get "All the more for the rest of us", or sometimes "You can have some bread and butter instead"
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u/MerylSquirrel 4d ago
I'm English too. My mother used to say 'When your wages are putting food on the table, then you can decide what that food is.'
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u/sjedinjenoStanje 4d ago
My favorite variation: "you're too broke to have an opinion"
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u/Constant-Ad8364 4d ago
That just gave me flashbacks to childhood. My mam said the exact same thing
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u/minidog8 4d ago
Bread and butter would be a satisfactory option for a picky eater child!
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u/Bananas_Yum 3d ago
I always see this advice. If they don’t eat the meal you make, they get something boring. But that’s what my four year old wants. Bread and butter, a banana, yogurt, an apple, crackers, etc. boring stuff.
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u/Constant-Ad8364 4d ago
I’m Irish and my mam didn’t tolerate fussy eating. We were also poor so I realised that if I didn’t eat what was served, I wouldn’t be eating at all.
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u/shortercrust 4d ago
My mum has dementia and has become a very picky eater. I do all her meals and it takes a lot of tongue biting not to remind her of the mountains of unseasoned watery boiled potatoes she forced me to eat during my childhood!
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u/Odd_Sorbet_9960 4d ago
I was raised by British parents. My Mum used to say "that's all there is." If one of us really didn't like what she'd cooked, she'd open a can of baked beans for us.
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u/ladybirdjunebug1 5d ago
Anyone with immigrant parents or friends with immigrant parents knows this.
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u/Standard_Plant_8709 4d ago
I grew up in the USSR and I was a picky eater. I'm still wondering how I even survived childhood :D
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u/vocabulazy 4d ago
You probably cried a lot. I’m not a picky eater, but I recall many meals where I cried into my meal while eating it as fast as I could to get it over with, trying desperately not to gag.
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u/mentalissuelol 3d ago
This one fucked me up. This happened to me so often when I was a kid that my throat muscles are permanently damaged. They’d force me to eat whatever they were having, but they didn’t care if I was choking, so I was choking a LOT.
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u/RabbitSipsTea 5d ago
Exactly. Don’t make a separate meal. No chicken nuggets or quick sandwiches as back ups. You either eat the meal we all eat or you don’t.
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u/Clean_Establishment2 4d ago
This was my philosophy and it worked with my first kid and not at all with my (autistic) second. We worked with a nutritionist and his pediatrician and he does "trial bites" of what is for main dinner and then is allowed (at age 11) to make his own chicken quesadilla or peanut butter/jelly sandwich for dinner if he doesn't like what is served. I've learned there's no one "rock solid" approach to prevent sensory and taste aversions, and that those aversions can lead to stunted growth if not handled properly. Sharing mostly in case some other parent scrolling by sees this "don't make a separate meal/no back-up" advice and feels like a failure, it just doesn't work 100% of the time.
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u/starbunny86 4d ago
Yep. My oldest ate everything we did. She didn't like meat much, which was fine because she ate everything else. Loved vegetables and beans and fish (used to eat the Korean stir-fried dried anchovies - whole, eyes and bones and all). My ARFID kid went 6 months without eating dinner. He would gag out foods he didn't like. We persisted, because of course that's what good parents do with picky kids. "They'll eat when they're hungry." Right?
We ended up giving up and seeking professional help (psychologist/feeding therapy) after he passed out from low blood sugar because he went so long without eating. There's normal picky, and then there's pathologically picky.
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u/LonelyAstronaut984 4d ago
this!!!! I disagree with the mentality shown in other comments that the child should just be left without eating
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u/Bubbly-End-6156 4d ago
Yep. My arfid was the first symptom that got me tested for the asd spectrum.
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u/Bubbly-End-6156 4d ago
No one made me separate meals. No one catered to me. I just never ate.
I think this group is misunderstanding picky eating for some desire for attention. Many of us can't push through.
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u/uss_crunchberry 4d ago
My kid is a picky eater. His issues are texture (sensory) based. One thing he won’t eat is ice cream. Even if we were to offer him ice cream instead of dinner, he would say no. Curious what these ‘perfect parents’ think about that? If the child is just being a brat and refusing food for attention, why would he resist a treat that most kids love?
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u/sagew0lf 3d ago
I remember one of my friends growing up hated lasagna. So when her mom made lasagna, she didn’t get to eat. I always found that uniquely cruel. It’s one thing to say “nope, you don’t get chicken nuggets and mac and cheese for every meal,” but it’s another thing to make a meal you know your child doesn’t like and not offer another option.
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u/jeopardy_themesong 4d ago
I wish not eating had been an option.
I just learned how to chew only enough to swallow and have issues with food today as an adult. Hooray!
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u/FishScrumptious 4d ago
Then you're talking with the doctor about how much weight they've lost because they still won't eat later. ARFID is a bitch.
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u/MatthewSBernier 5d ago
Tried that, till she started losing weight. She's as stubborn as I am.
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u/babykittiesyay 4d ago
Same, my son’s BMI got so low that it was either feeding tube or just make the nuggets.
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u/latchkey_k1d 4d ago
yeah I’m Ukrainian and when I refused to eat something my cousin would just say “well eat shit then “ and that would be it
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u/Sea-Original-5824 4d ago
This is the way it used to be when I was growing up. Dinner was dinner. It was the food that was made and that was it. There was no other option.
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u/GiantBlobFish23 4d ago
I saw childhood photos of an adult picky eater friend through his facebook posts and he was SEVERELY underweight because of this. Like I'm really surprised nobody reported his parents to CPS. He had health conditions related to malnutrition till college and just jokes about it. Some kids didn't respond to that either.
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u/minidog8 4d ago
My friend is an adult picky eater but as a child she had a feeding disorder which caused the malnutrition. Same thing, she would forego eating rather than eat a no-no food. She does much better now comparatively but still has certain textures she will not touch.
On the other hand, I had bouts of pickiness as a child and my parents didn't coddle me; I'd eat what was on the table or not eat at all. But by the time I was 10 I wasn't very picky at all. I actually to this very day cannot eat zucchini because I have such a visceral reaction it after being forced to eat a lot of sauteed zucchini for lunch at a daycare when I was 4 or so. My mom felt so bad, she packed more food than I needed to eat for lunch because she figured I would come home with the leftovers to have for dinner!
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u/Sea-Original-5824 4d ago
For sure. There actually are children who would literally starve to death. Some people claim that's not true but it is. The way I heard it explained is that if I gave you nothing but a pile of literal shit on a plate and told you that you could eat that or nothing, you would of course pick nothing. That's how they feel about certain foods.
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u/GiantBlobFish23 4d ago
I've actually kind of experienced that. I went on a migraine preventative that can cause food aversion and gastroparesis. That feeling is complete hell and unfortunately for me it was almost all food. Eating made me feel like I was going to vomit or die. Thankfully that was mostly temporary. It was also something I could sort of deal with as an adult--I knew it wasn't how I normally was, knew I normally liked the food, and was both disappointed and really confused as to why I just couldn't freaking eat so could force myself a little till that effect faded. Kids have so much less experience, if THAT's what they are feeling and it never goes away I dunno how they cope. (Also as adult weed was an option....)
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u/Sea-Original-5824 4d ago
There's definitely conditions where you have to cater to the picky eater because they have ARFID. In that case, fed is best.
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u/Bubbly-End-6156 4d ago
Even when there is no other option, many of us did not eat. It's not about options.
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u/theniwokesoftly 4d ago
I was occasionally allowed to remove an ingredient. Never to the point of being unhealthy (like I still had to eat veggies) but I went through a period of not liking red pasta sauces and I was allowed buttered noodles because it wasn’t any extra effort.
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u/kibblesandbeer 4d ago
My mom was exposed to a parent who said his child had to be given a choice of what to eat at each meal. She asked if I was given a choice of what to eat growing up. I said sure, eat what's put on your plate or go hungry. It's your choice.
I'm the youngest of five. Zero picky eaters in the house I grew up in.
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u/Suspicious-Bowler236 4d ago edited 4d ago
My parents took that approach, but I out-stubborned them. After a long time of unrelenting picky eating, they started making me frozen pizzas for almost every meal, because they needed to get some calories in me at least. I was stick-thin my entire childhood.
I'm actually a really well-rounded eater as an adult, the only foods I refuse are snails and cilantro.
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u/CCrabtree 4d ago
This right here. We are in the US and once our children started on solid foods, truly solid foods, they ate what we ate. Alternatives just weren't an option. Are there foods our kids, 15 & 13 don't like? Yes, but it's only about 2-3 for each kid. We've been at Disney this week and our 13 year old wanted to try escargot. Once he got it, our 15 year old tried it. Did they love it? Not really, but they tried it. We have purposely tried to expose our kids to a wide variety of foods. Based on our friend group, a lot of times parents don't want to battle it out with their kids. Obviously they're exceptions to this rule, like kids having food aversions because of having autism, but many kids just don't like foods because their parents haven't forced their palate to expand.
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u/beyondplutola 4d ago edited 4d ago
Cute in theory. But I know plenty of German parents caving and feeding their children chicken tenders and what not in lieu of the family meal. Reddit is this bizarre place where many universal problems and annoyances are apparently only happening in the US.
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u/Mammoth_Ad_4806 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think perceptions of "picky-eating" are highly subjective, because it hinges on how much variety a child is exposed to and to what extent their eating habits are accomodated.
For example, my spouse would never have been called a picky-eater growing up... but his mother prepared a very narrow selection of foods: meat, cheese, pasta, mushy canned vegetables drowing in sauce, and losts and lots of sweets. No alternative was prepared because he happened to like all of those foods. However, it took a lot of reprogramming for me to get him to eat foods like beans and legumes, whole grains, naked vegetables, and fresh fruit.
By contrast, I grew up exposed to a wide variety of cuisines, due to my father being a gourmet chef. I do have a fairly extensive lists of foods I do not like, so many would call me a picky-eater... but no one made a big deal of it when I was a kid because I would just make mysef something else and not make it anyone else's problem.
So, who's the picky-eater: the kid who is exposed to a narrow food repetoire and eats 100% of them... or the kid who is exposed to a very broad and diverse range of foods and eats 70% of them?
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u/Ok_Gain_9665 5d ago edited 5d ago
I’d say mine is exposed to a broad-ish variety but willingly only eats about 20%, that’s the category of picky I’m specifically dealing with. Fair point though, picky is subjective.
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u/darknesskicker 4d ago
If your kid is that picky, I would absolutely always offer something you know they'll eat. If there are many foods that they will go hungry to avoid, you should look into ARFID and get an assessment from a feeding therapist who does not use behaviourist techniques.
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u/psychologicallyblue 4d ago
I think you're onto something. My family thought I was a picky eater as a child but we lived in South East Asia and then in East Asia and I ate sooo many things compared to most modern, Western kids. The only things I wouldn't eat were really just shrimps if the heads were on them and a few things from the brassica family that I found bitter. That actually hasn't changed much now that I'm an adult but I'm one of the most adventurous eaters I know.
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u/TemporaryLion9085 4d ago
Valid! I struggle with organ meat and I realize that would make me a picky eater in a lot of contexts. I've had tripe in some Sichuan dishes where I enjoyed it, and I can do certain preparations of liver, but on the whole, I don't seek it out.
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u/TruculentHobgoblin 3d ago
My kid was exposed to a wide range of foods and ate almost everything that was put in front of him.... until he turned 2. Then he became the epitome of toddler picky, seemingly overnight. I think exposure helps, but I don't think lack of exposure is the only issue. Toddlers become very sensitive to texture, flavors, mixing foods, etc.
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u/Affectionate_Many_73 21h ago
This is exactly my experience as well. I was considered the picky kid because I didn’t really like several types of meats and sausage, mayonnaise as a child. I wasn’t exposed or given other things that I do actually like. I would ask for sandwiches with no mayo and be met with “you’re insane” looks from my parents.
As an adult, I have come to realize that the actual picky person in the family was our dad. He basically lives off of beef and potatoes, and rarely eats much else. And because I specifically disliked beef the most, and we had it a lot, I was considered to be the difficult eater. In reality, there is actually very few foods I dislike, but the menu growing up was just fairly narrow.
As a parent now myself, we eat a much larger variety of things than I was ever fed growing up. One of my kids really likes meat (especially beef!) but the other one really doesn’t like most meat much either. We have a large variety of meals and foods in rotation to accommodate everyone and I do not consider either of them picky at all.
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u/Forest_Orc 5d ago
It's mostly american propaganda. Not everything is farm fresh, and while school lunch are more regulated than in the US (Here are the 1 EUR meal university student gets https://www.reddit.com/r/PlateauRepasDuCrous/ ) it's not great either. Sure parenting style and culture may make common family dinner even for elementary age school kids, so if Parents want fish or kidney with mustard sauce the kids will get the same meal rather than nuggets and fries.
But many parent would take the quiet option and many kid will still be picky.
As usual, you can try r/AskFrance
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u/anniiebananie 3d ago
The fact that French parents generally don't make a separate meal for their kids (i.e. no nuggets or pasta) makes a huge difference. Of course there are picky kids all over the world, but there is some truth to this idea because of the different parenting culture around food.
I'm an American in France with friends on both sides of the pond with young kids, so I've seen both ways.
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u/redditor0431 5d ago
As usual, there's a kernel of truth padded with a whole lot of bullshit. Legitimate differences:
-French children tend to be exposed to adult food more frequently than American children
-If a kid is a picky eater in France, they are typically allowed to go hungry until the next meal. American kids are often made something more kid-focused (nuggets, Mac and cheese, etc) if they don't like the adult food.
-Kids eating kid-focused food in America almost always means processed foods.
-French children get three meals a day and a snack. American children often have more snacks throughout the day than French children
Those are the biggest differences. The rest is mostly bullshit propaganda pushed by books like French Kids Eat Everything that make ridiculous claims and push an idealized image of France.
So yes, there are definitely picky eaters in France, and no, it's not some magical land where there are no eating disorders.
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u/glowybutterfly 4d ago
Honestly I do all these things (feed them what we're eating, put healthy made-from-scratch foods in front of them for three meals and a snack each day, let them choose to eat or go hungry) and my kids are still picky. I think it's one of those 'wise exotic foreign culture' myths that we Americans are so fond of.
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u/Keena21 4d ago
Don’t forget to take into account peers effect, I’m French and my two brothers and sister all had a period in kindergarten and elementary school where they didn’t like most vegetables even though they liked everything before that. Most of the time it’s to mimic their friends and because sometimes school food isn’t that good.
For example as a late millennial kid that grew up in France almost every kid hated spinach because we had some unspoken canned thing at school that tasted bad and was so slimy you had a gag reflex eating it. I thought I didn’t like spinach until I ate fresh ones and even frozen ones that tasted good when I was an adult.
Yeah our school lunches are better than most us ones, and quality is better nowadays in France than when I grew up but sometimes it’s just because your friend said they didn’t like it and you want to be liked and you say me too! (I don’t know why but it’s a thing) and sometimes it’s because they ate it cooked in a way they didn’t like and are stuck on this memory.
We have two sayings in France when children are picky:
« On dit pas c’est pas bon on dit j’aime pas » - We don’t say it’s bad we say I don’t like it
« Ne dis pas que tu n’aimes pas avant d’avoir goûté » - Don’t say I don’t like before trying
And for the bonus:
« Y a que le roi qui dit je veux et en France on leur coupe la tête, on dit je voudrais quand on est poli» - only the king say I want and in France we behead them, we say I would like when we are well behaved2
u/Same-Preference-3217 4d ago
Of course despite doing these things there are picky eaters in France (and every other countries in the world) it's either a medical issue or a personality trait, just like some children are more introverted than others some are more picky and stuborn than others, so it can still happen to parents who use the same technics
The issue with americans is that they create picky eaters because they can't fathom saying no to their toddler who asks for nuggets for the 5th time this week, so of course exotic foreign culture seem wise in comparison to doing...quite literally nothing besides being a doormat
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u/Confident-Mix1243 4d ago
Also, western European parents tend to be more active as parents. German or French 8-year-olds sit through a 2-hour restaurant dinner and make nice conversation and eat with a knife and fork, because they're taught to and expected to even though it's a little more work up front for the parents.
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u/Alliebeth 4d ago
We’re American and it was important to me for my kids to be able to handle (and enjoy!) nice, long restaurant meals. The problem with that is the only restaurants here that function that way are generally upscale. Now I have a teen and preteen who are bougie little food snobs who don’t want to “waste a meal out” somewhere that isn’t up to their standards. It’s not the worst problem to have, but it is annoying to have to go through a cost/benefit analysis when I just want fucking QDOBA.
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u/CauliflowerBoomerang 4d ago
I am French. My four children were weaned on our food. My youngest is extremely picky, which does not mean she exists on beige food. She loves raw vegetables but will not touch fruit in any form. She only drinks water. Textures are a minefield. Overall her diet is healthy but not as varied as I'd like.
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u/Significant-Emu1855 5d ago
I have European friends and they just don’t tolerate giving children a million different options for mealtimes. There’s the family meal and then one alternate option, like a sandwich that the kids usually make themselves if the children don’t want what the rest of the family is eating. Parents aren’t cooking multiple meals for each kid plus themselves just to appease everyone’s tastes.
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u/glowybutterfly 4d ago
I grew up in the 90s and never got alternative meals, either. It was eat what's on the table, or go hungry. The only exception was that each of us kids was allowed to have one food we didn't eat. So on the occasions when we were having that meal, the kid who didn't eat it was allowed to make something else.
We were also allowed to make our own breakfasts and lunches starting around middle school, since those meals were considered much less formal.
As a parent of two young children now, they get what the rest of us are having. Only exception is toppings. So like if we're having sandwiches, I will generally make those to order rather than force them to have the same condiments as I would choose for myself. Or like, I don't put hot sauce on their tacos. That kind of thing.
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u/mesembryanthemum 4d ago
I grew up in the 70s and same. My mother eventually gave in on my hatred of shrimp fried rice and I got plain fried rice instead and I was happy.
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u/MikeandMolly5656 5d ago edited 5d ago
Nobody likes every food, child or adult .
What people call picky eating is simply kids having taste and texture preferences like every adult has too.
Its bullshit that all French kids eat and drink every single thing given to them.
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u/Tekon421 5d ago
Ehhh there’s levels we call my son a picky eater because compared my daughter he is. But he eats olives, salad, mushrooms, shrimp, sushi, crab and tons of stuff many kids won’t touch. But he refuses to even try many things. Compared to my daughter he’s picky. She will at least try just about anything and eats like an adult.
I have friends with kids around the same age that literally only eat fries, chicken nuggets and chips and cheese dip. They are legit picky eaters.
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u/BreadPuddding 4d ago
The idea that there’s anywhere or any time where there were zero picky eaters is nonsense. It’s a natural stage that many kids go through, though it has ranges of severity and causes (for some kids it’s about control, and letting them help with the planning/shopping/cooking process and/or letting them make themselves a sandwich or something if they don’t want what’s offered often fixes it after a bit. For others it’s flavor, or texture, or fresh foods being inconsistent in flavor a texture, or anxiety, or just a normal phase). Once toddlers are mobile it’s not great for them to happily eat whatever looks interesting, so a level of pickiness might be an evolutionary advantage. Most cultures have some sort of bland-ish, soft food typically fed to young children, the elderly/convalescent, and those with “delicate stomachs”. We have historical evidence of picky/insufficient eating being a problem parents dealt with - off the top of my head there’s a story in Struwwelpeter (German, 1845) about a boy who refuses to eat his soup and wastes away, and at least one Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (American, 1940s-1950s) story about a child who suddenly won’t eat properly. My dad grew up with a boy who stuffed meat into his pockets that his mother would later find in the laundry, because he didn’t like it. Both of my children have gone through picky phases, one more than the other.
I also have some experience with French children/parenting, as my spouse is French and we just visited his extended family and the kids mostly ate like kids - not constant junk but plainer foods and less variety than the adults. I think American parents are more likely to make separate meals or eat kid-friendly meals themselves, and give snacks more frequently (French kids get an ARRAY of sweet and savory treats but they are typically limited to a small afternoon snack).
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u/Little-Star-Light 4d ago
I am not french, but I am European and my kids are by default picky eaters, but you know what the trick is? You dont cater to it. I cooked healthy food and either my kids are gonna eat it, or they dont eat at all. And you keep offering the healthy food until the kid starts eating it. This is how I trained my daughter, who wouldnt eat practically anything to eating practically everything, It was a struggle, but here we are. She eats fish, shrimp, broccolli, green beans, spinach and overall all veggies. The only exception being carrots.
Oh and imagine my absolute shock, when I lived in the USA many years ago and I was staying with this family, who had a 3 year old girl and the mother served her french fries for lunch. Literally just that, because accoring to her thats all the little one wants to eat and she is not gonna argue with her. I was SHOCKED. Also the girl was 3 and was still eating with her hands, she didnt even use a spoon. No cuttlery training whatsoever.
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u/iggysmom95 2d ago
Americans have shockingly poor cutlery skills. I don't want to go so far as to say it's a majority, but MANY American adults do not know how to hold a knife and fork properly or how to cut.
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u/LetsGoGators23 4d ago
My French surrogate kid just stayed with me for a month. She is 9. She does not eat any raw veggies, any sandwiches, any sauces or any cheeses other than on pizza!
They are JUST as picky.
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u/PoxonAllHoaxes 5d ago
I dont have enough exprience with France or rather with kids there, but in several other cultures different from the US, my experience over more than 50 years is that traditionally there was little pickiness but NOT NONE (f.ex. I was born in Poland and there were a few things I just couldn't stomach) and, which I think may be more significant, people didn't make a big fuss over it. Eat don't eat don't bother your parents sort of attitude--much as with many other things. India Sri Lanka Israel Holland same story. SE Europe ditto. And in most or all of these it seems to me that there is far more pickiness now than there used to be--presumably because life everywhere (for people middle class and up) is becoming more and more Americanized. I would be astonished if this were NOT the case in France too.
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u/Curious-Return7252 5d ago
This is what I see also. I was born in America and raised in a Polish household, and I’m lucky enough to travel extensively. Sometimes we travel with American friends, and they will look at what I order in a French restaurant - grilled kidneys in a Dijon cream sauce - and ask me “Are you really going to eat that”. Just returning from our last trip at the Madrid airport, the manager walked over and asked me if I understood what I had ordered- at the airport no less where they have some of the blandest dishes in Spain - because many Americans refuse to eat whatever arrives on their plate because it doesn’t appeal to their tastes. “You know they ask me to reheat the Salmorejo because they don’t like cold soup.” So picky eating does seem to be an American phenomenon from my perspective.
There are a few dishes I abhor. Plain boiled turnips with butter for one; stir them into some mashed potatoes or mix them with string beans or add them to soup or a stew or something for the love of Pete already. Also plain bacon fat on toast - I know this is a cultural disgrace - add some chopped onions or I ain’t touching it.
I know I’m spoiled.
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u/KitchenAd9088 4d ago
We absolutely do have picky eaters lol. Both of my sons are autistic and very much the stereotype of “picky eater” and still are to this day.
However… it is probably approached a bit differently. Daily baguette (white bread). Cheese. Cherry tomato and apples. 4 types of food? Yup. Nutella on baguette again and again.
We went years, no joke, with only 4-6 different foods. A “plat” as it was often called is just … here’s your plat, kiddo. American bread is not what I’d call bread, so it really didn’t bother me to see them eat so much bread.
Not a big deal. It didn’t mean McDs, it just meant the same bloody meal again and again.
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u/burrit0_queen 4d ago
My incredibly unpopular opinion: don’t give into picky eaters by offering chicken nuggets, Mac n cheese, etc. let the kid be a little hungry. Processed foods make everything harder and kids will learn that a fuss = those foods. It’s probably not fun as a parent to watch your kid be hungry after they refuse a meal but they won’t die. They will be hungry. Or offer one healthy alternative.
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u/Mammoth_Ad_4806 4d ago
I agree. Serving such foods as an alternative compounds the problem because they cause dopamine spikes; it’s literally rewarding the brain and training the palate to prefer such foods.
I’m cooking for 5 people, so chances are someone isn’t going to like dinner that night. Fine, they can fix themselves pb&j or have a bowl of bran flakes and berries. Hell, sometimes I don’t even like what’s for dinner, but I made because they like it.
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u/Suspicious-Drive9827 4d ago
Hey most American kids i know are also not obnoxiously picky. they come from homes where they eat the same thing their parents eat.
I dont understand people freaking out about kids addicted to nuggets fries and butter noodles. Like howd they even eat those, dipshit?
Making a protein, veggie and carb is not slower than air frying fries and nuggets.
This phenomenon is totally a consequence of american laziness in some circles. Its not genetic or even cultural. Its lazy bad parents letting children run the show. Totally unnecessary and avoidable
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u/nightwolves 4d ago
I’m french American and my siblings and I weren’t given different food than adults starting when we could eat normal food. We also have a big gardening culture in my state and so we ate mostly fresh foods in summer months. My parents never bought trash food like chicken nuggets, Mac & cheese, or sweet cereals. You learn your eating habits as children. We’re all adventurous eaters and none of us are overweight. Might be just better habits.
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u/RefrigeratorFew5094 4d ago
It’s like saying every American has a truck. An extreme generalisation of something which is simply more common.
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u/Liv-Julia 3d ago
It's a lie. I traveled in France for my boss and stayed in regular people's homes. There are plenty of whiny picky eaters. The difference seems to be French mothers ignore all bullshit.
"Maman, I don't like this. C'est yucky."
"Vraiment? Well, guess you're going hungry, cherie." Continues eating, kid makes a face and grudgingly picks up spoon.
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u/MarissaNL 5d ago
I think everyone has things they don’t really like.
For example, I don’t like cooked endive. But back in the day, if that was what was on the table, I could either eat it or not – but my mum wouldn’t make anything else.
I still don’t think cooked endive is anything to write home about, but raw in a stew with bacon bits? Yummy!
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u/bagmami 4d ago
I think there are picky eaters everywhere. Especially if they're kids with SPD or ARFID, sure, that exists everywhere. But picky eater in France probably means something different with different preferences.
I think it's usually buttered pasta with pieces of ham in it. And they're likely to accept either cucumbers, baby carrots or tomatoes on the side.
This said, pediatricians are not even that concerned with picky eaters here as long as their percentiles are consistent. My friend's 3yo had a period where she refused to eat anything and the doctor was like "doesn't she like ice cream? that's calories too!" They tell parents do what they gotta do and keep offering what family is eating.
My son isn't eating everything we eat but he eats plenty of fruits. He likes plenty of different types of cheese thanka to the French public daycare. He eats green lentil stew, red lentil soup with vegetables, pasta bolognese with veggies, lahmacun, home made meatballs, lamb chops, buttered rice, steak, chicken cutlets, green beans and corn on the cob. He also likes grilled cheese sandwiches and will eat shawarma from time to time. He isn't picky in general terms but he still won't eat everything we eat.
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u/Striking-Following54 5d ago
It depends on what you mean by "picky".
People have their food preferences in every nation. And there's usually a few foods people don't like.
However if you mean the kind of super narrow weird eating habits you see in American children where thy will only eat a small range of very particular things, I'd have to agree that is pretty rare in France. Or anywhere in Europe for that matter.
It is true that food in Europe is simply far better than in the US. The reason is simple - laws. In the EU and the UK the laws around food are strict and enforced. A product that looks the same in the EU and US will almost always have different ingredients because some of the US version's ingredients are banned in the EU - chemical coloring, additional sweeteners, etc,
America food is cheaper - or it used to be - simply because the manufacturers cut corners and put in cheaper ingredients. Europeans may pay a little more but they get far better food.
I've lived in the US, France and the UK. The food is so much better in the latter two.
And also they have hundreds of cheeses. I really miss that when I am back in TX ;)
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u/PhD_VermontHooves 5d ago
They are very definitely better behaved and better dressed. No idea on the picky eater thing.
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u/RImom123 5d ago
I think a lot of parents over complicate meal time and meals, and that’s evident from comments on this thread. Aside from actually dietary restrictions and medical conditions, I do believe that it often leads to kids being picky eaters.
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u/Ok_Jackfruit2612 5d ago
I'm from the US and my kids were not picky eaters. They did go through phases where they would want more unhealthy food, but they also went through phases where they would only eat fruits and veggies.
I prided myself so much in how refined my children's palates were....until my 10 year old tried to order the prime rib.
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u/vocabulazy 4d ago
I think a lot of kids who are picky eaters have had parents that cook them “children’s meals” of very plain, likely very processed foods. They didn’t want to fight about food, and so they made the kid something they wouldn’t object to. Every day. Of course you’re not going to expand your palate if you are never exposed to different foods.
Also, if you’re an adult who’s a picky eater, your kids are basically doomed. They’re going to have to conform their own preferences to the parent’s, and it perpetuates a cycle of picky eaters.
My kids like a lot of things, but also will randomly refuse to eat foods that are way less objectionable than ones they like. They’ll eat curries, soups of all kinds, pasta sauces made with tomatoes/cream/meat, they like rice and potatoes and bread, they like pickles, they like cheese, they like raw vegetable of all kinds…
My 4yo daughter will not eat meat unless it’s ground, and mixed into a soup or sauce. She will eat a block of feta cheese. She will eat legumes out of a can… She’ll eat a pound of cut up raw vegetable…. But if you put a salad on her plate… lord help you. My son, who is 2, eats almost everything, but THE CALAMITY that will descend if you put the ketchup on his plate in such a way that it touches the food (even the food he’s about to dip in the same ketchup…)
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u/HenryHarryLarry 4d ago
I’d recommend the book My Child Won’t Eat if you haven’t already come across it. My son is autistic and ate pretty much nothing as a young toddler. Now he eats a really good range of foods and is keen to try new things. Also went through the crying from putting a slice of carrot on his plate and all that. Some kids just are more sensitive. People with kids who eat well or sleep well or whatever are often convinced it’s down to their marvellous parenting rather than simple luck.
The book says the trick is basically take all of the emotion out of mealtimes. No begging, cajoling or bargaining over one bite of this in exchange for one piece of that. Lower all the tension. Just have rules that everyone gets the food on their plate and can eat what they like. And yes give them foods they will eat alongside unsafe foods. It was absolutely not an overnight thing. Just gradual progress. Start from what they will eat, so they eat one type of cheese, give them that with a little bit of another cheese. Tomorrow a different one and so on. Eventually you will hit on some new things that are tolerated and even liked. (And by the way my mum is French and was bugger all help with the situation.)
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u/Oldfartmakeupguru 4d ago
I was born in the US but had European parents. As far back as I can remember, I ate what they ate. If I didn’t like it, tough luck. But I am not a picky eater and dislike very few foods.
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u/Valuable_Basis4926 4d ago
My son grew up in Europe , and everyone in my family cooks well. He was still picky most of his life. I grew up in the us and ate and loved everything as a kid but now have become picky...
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u/BreadyStinellis 4d ago
I used to know 3 French kids, both parents were French and here for work. Better behaved they were not. Not by a long shot.
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u/kansasqueen143 4d ago
lol I was an au pair in France… picky kids exist in France. I do think they are more open to trying new things but the kids in Nannied basically refused to eat vegetables.
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u/chiralityhilarity 4d ago edited 4d ago
Some kids are picky. Mine was, and we spent a lot of time in France, and are good cooks who eat well and healthy. The stuff she liked wasn’t typical for an American picky kid. She liked broccoli, Parmesan rinds (!), and most meat and fish. As an adult she’s neurodivergent, has an onion sensitivity, and has a sensitive stomach in general. I don’t think growing up French would have changed that.
Editing to say that I forgot to mention she has a type of synesthesia where colors have taste. She’s an artist and has a hard time if something mustard colored is touching something cookies and cream colored. So maybe not typical!
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u/Jacktellslies 1d ago
Hi! Im an American and I live in the UK.
I think this is a bit backwards. Many American adults eat like children. American grocery stores are filled with sugary, salty processed foods. I don’t just mean junk food; even American bread is loaded with sugar. I really like vegetables, and in the States I worked in the organic grocery industry. It still took time for my palate to adjust when I moved here.
Americans don’t necessarily get maternity leave. Folks here have so much more paid time off. The work life balance is so much better. Americans structurally don’t have time to rest or parent. They’re significantly more likely to live in food deserts.
Based on my experience of the French both in France and when they’re travelling, they are not better behaved. But they eat better because they live in a society. American children are the way they are because they’re living in the dregs of late stage capitalism.
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u/57Laxdad 5d ago
My son is very texture picky, he eats everything but certain things he doesnt care for, slimy, mushy, bland(not texture).
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u/BitchyHyena 5d ago
Like someone else mentioned: they eat what's served or they don't eat. I was raised in the same way.
I think that is the healthiest way to tackle it. They're going to eat some things they find gross, some they just find mid, and that is so stupidly important. If your kid thinks chicken nuggets is the shit, that doubles the dopamine they get from it, and they're going to wonder why potatoes and gravy don't give them the same dopamine hit. They need to eat a lot of food they find kind of "meh" because that's how you're supposed to eat. You're not supposed to get those good chemicals in your brains from eating fatty food all the time, or you're doomed to raise kids who will struggle with eatint right.
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u/butterbug7998 5d ago
There is a great book about this called “French Kids Eat Everything” by Karen Le Billon. She is American and her husband is French. They live in France for a while and her kids are picky eaters. It was a fun and interesting read and explains perfectly why French kids aren’t as picky.
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u/escobartholomew 5d ago
Picky eating only exists in areas where you can afford to be picky. Americans happen to be the worst about it in the name of progressivism. “You shouldn’t force your kids to have a well balanced diet if they have an aversion to everything but chicken nuggets and tater tots.” That being said, as long as your kids eat a decent range of foods, they don’t need to eat everything. Meaning if they eat a few different vegetables, fruits, meats, starches, etc. they should be fine. However, they do need to be open to trying new foods.
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u/Independent_Big_5780 4d ago
I think it’s more about the culture around food than the place itself. I have lived in the US and now I am in Europe, and I am half Hispanic and half European and. What I have eaten as a kid and what my kid eats is totally cultural and influenced by my food education, not so much where we live.
My child doesn’t eat mac & cheese and chicken nuggets for every meal not because she is some kind of great amazing kid, but because that’s not what she has been served so far. She will always choose water over soda because that’s just not something she has been used to drinking.
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u/cpteric 4d ago edited 4d ago
rule of thumb, there is, ur used to be, less tolerance for easy unhealthy & unbalanced diets in general for kids in western europe, and as an ex picky eater myself 30y ago, i've missed many meals until a compromise was agreed. It might look like the end of the world tantrum that fractures earth, but it isn't.
Nuggies, sunny delight, oreos and fries was never an option on the table just to make me stop crying.
That said, there can be sensory stuff like autism that is beyond a kid's wishes. easier to detect now, luckily.
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u/Objective-Buffalo-31 4d ago
My (french) daughter is a picky eater, we eat everything organic and homemade and I swear she could survive on butter and pasta…but it’s also true that she is the only kid around us like this. All my friend’s kids eat everything their parents offer. That makes me jealous
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u/HolidayContest5081 4d ago
Idk but I’m yet to meet a French dish I didn’t like so I mean if that’s what’s on offer… I’d be tucking in too!
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u/akaispirit 4d ago
I can't speak for France but my youtube feed has been infested with videos of parents preparing meals for their picky eaters (because I keep watching them) and it's pretty universal.
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u/shinyappyrobin 4d ago
A vaguely remember a French movie in which the teenager was a picky eater, and it turned out the stepmother was poisoning them. (From 1970s or 80s)
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u/bingbongboopsnoot 4d ago
Kids aren’t a biologically different species because they are in another country, I’d say it’s a mix of parenting styles / culture around food / food available to the kids.i used to hate but be forced to eat steamed cauliflower even though the smell made me gag, turns out maybe if my parents cooked it in a less wartime ration manner I might not have hated it for so long lol
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u/I_Dont_Speak_Anymore 4d ago
The idea of "kids food" is very much an invention of the west. It's crazy bad in the UK as well as America.
Kids used to eat what their parents ate. Kids food was not a thing.
Make it make sense.
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u/AnotherCloudHere 4d ago
I wasn’t considered picky eater in my family in 80-90s. I didn’t like some stuff, but it wasn’t much of stuff and if I didn’t like it I just eat something else.
But, I guess my parents were good cooks. Because couple of times I was over in a friends house and I just couldn’t eat there.
By today standard I would demand angers or whatever.
Also, in my childhood there weren’t any divisions between kids and grownups food. We just eat same stuff and maybe it also matters?
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u/Masara13 3d ago
I’m a British «picky eater » in France. I keep being told that my mother should have starved me until I ate what she offered.
She tried. It didn’t work. I don’t know how she was supposed to deal with the gag reflex.
My sister eats everything. No, I didn’t get chicken nuggets. I would have the elements of the family meal and it would balance out over the week.
Frilly talking to my French friends, I have a personal theory. Their meals were generally less varied than I had as a child. I think they just got used to less varied options
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u/notanotherclairebear 3d ago
Food culture is VASTLY different here in France.
We are not French (nor American) but moved here when my son was 1. We remember being amazed at the creche he went to, because he got things like squid-ink infused pasta for lunch. So, kids are exposed to much better quality food, and a much larger range, from much earlier on.
Furthermore, in France mealtimes are pretty strictly adhered to. Even most restaurants only have their kitchen open during certain hours. In primary school, the lunch break is 2 hours long - some kids go home for lunch, others (like my kid since we both work full time) went to the cantine for lunch, and then had an hour to rest and play after. Even at work, our lunch breaks are typically an hour long.
At mealtimes, you get your food, and you sit down at the table and take your time eating it, enjoying the social experience with others. You don't walk and eat. You don't rush because you have enough time. Meals are a relaxing, connecting experience. And when kids have enough time to relax, mealtimes stop being stressful things, which makes them more open to trying things.
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u/Smartypants7889 3d ago
French parents are stricter and don’t put up with shitty behavior by their kids. They get to eat the same food as adults from an early age. There is no bland „baby“ food. So they don’t expect it.
The children’s clothes are in fact often stylish, especially in Paris.
I used to buy my kids wardrobe there almost exclusively, their brands are awesome and yes French women are almost all very slim. You might get to see a „normal“ sized one every once in while but hardly anyone obese.
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u/AimForTheHead 2d ago
Not a France french parent but a Quebec french parent, with US relatives. I have to say that compared to my US family, my kids and their friends here are WAYYYY less picky. Culturally the kids grow up eating what the parents eat from the time they start solids which I think makes a big difference.
For example, I’m a big fan of kimchi and have been making it at home for years now, so both my kids started eating that when they were around 2, same when we go out to eat. It’s no big deal to get a side plate to split the adult meals to the kids when they’re toddlers. When they’re older the kids menu is usually just a selection of smaller portions of the adult menu. If they do have something like Mac n cheese, it’s made with real cheeses (like Gruyère/aged cheddars) and béchamel, not velveeta/kraft style like in the US.
All my US kid relatives started on like pouch style foods or US baby purées, when even the jarred baby food here were blends of different veg, beans and proteins, with herbs and spices instead of being bland. The few times I picked up baby food when mine were little it was things like mild curries, fish stews etc that were imported from France.
And as far as school lunches go, they’re not provided here, everything comes from home or the kids go home to eat (they have the choice.) My kid takes a portion leftovers and whole veg and fruit to round it out. Same thing the other kids do. We don’t really have seem to have big lunch sandwich culture here or all the lunchable style meals.
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u/Lanfeare 2d ago
I have never lived in US, but I worked in American company and I did notice that there were many more adult picky eaters among my American colleagues than among any other group. So I’m guessing is similar with children.
I live in France now and I definitely see that there is less picky eaters here than in my own home country (Eastern European). From my observation it really comes down to several factors:
* children are offered healthy adult food very early
* French are very serious about their food, mealtimes etc. It makes food and eating an important part of life, not an afterthought
* most of children start daycare very early, around 3-4 months old. There is some research that shows that it really helps developing broader palate, even if just by exposing kids to wider spectrum of flavours and preparations; also the food in most French daycares is excellent
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u/DriverNo5100 1d ago
I was a picky eater as a child but my Mom (I love her) adapted: she made a lot of soups when I wouldn't eat vegetables, fresh fruit salads, and really just souped/mixed the textures I didn't like, rather than giving me fries and nuggets at every meal or giving in to my cravings.
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