Helen Zoe Veit, NY Times 2/15/26: There’s a Reason American Kids Are Such Picky Eaters:
An excerpt:
In historical documents of all kinds, from medical treatises to diaries to school records, Americans described children as curious omnivores who appreciated bold flavors and interesting textures…
This was unrelated to socioeconomic status — children at every income level happily ate a diversity of foods. But today, appreciation of sharp and varied flavors can be hard to find among American kids. Parenting message boards are filled with questions about getting reluctant children to eat vegetables, and kids’ menus across the country offer dishes aimed at narrow palates.
Many adults assume that prolonged pickiness is a hard-wired stage and that kids naturally dislike many foods. But mass childhood pickiness is a modern phenomenon created largely by junk food companies that marketed products like sugary cereals as food specifically for children, convincing Americans that kids need different, easily likable foods...widespread pickiness didn’t exist until the 20th century. Before then, kids sometimes disliked individual foods, just as some adults did. But people in earlier eras didn’t think that pickiness was related to age.
All this changed as food companies like General Foods and Nestlé poured money into designing products in laboratories to target humans’ biological instincts and make their foods very hard to refuse. By the mid-20th century, thousands of seductively sweet, salty and crunchy factory foods crowded grocery shelves, and many of them were marketed aggressively to children — from Goldfish crackers to SpaghettiOs…
Junk food companies also started pushing portable, calorie-dense snacks…
As marketers glorified personalized eating, family eating habits fractured. Before the mid-20th century, most family meals centered on communal food. But as kitchens filled with shelf-stable products, many Americans stopped sharing food in the same way. One 1950s mother noted that she ate whole-wheat bread, her husband ate rye bread, and her children ate white bread…Cooking had also transformed. As more food was processed in factories, meal preparation could mean warming up or even just assembling. It suddenly became feasible to “cook” separate meals for different family members...
We’ve been told that urging kids to eat any particular dish can cause lasting aversions and dysfunctional relationships with food...
Parents can warmly encourage children to eat family foods and avoid offering alternatives. They can also counter corporate marketing with their own enthusiastic messages about the foods they love to eat, whether it’s a crunchy salad or slippery green olives.
My take: The advice in this article is not for everyone – especially for patients with ARFID, sensory processing disorders, and autism. Also, this problem is not solely related to ‘big food’ marketing. There are other factors shaping our eating habits. For example, one factor for many households, especially if both parents are working, is less time for meal preparation.
Some books that may be helpful for families working through these issues:
- Laura Jana and Jennifer Shu: Food Fights: Winning the Nutritional Challenges of Parenthood
- Ellyn Satter: Child of Mine and Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family
- Keith E. Williams and Laura J. Seiverling: Broccoli Boot Camp: Basic Training for Parents of Selective Eaters
Related blog posts:
- Why Pureed Food Pouches Are Not a Good Idea for Young Children
- Dr. Praveen Goday: Tips on Managing Feeding Problems (Part 1)
- Dr. Praveen Goday: Tips on Managing Feeding Problems (Part 2)
- Durability of Intensive Feeding Therapy
- Good Luck Getting Intensive Feeding Therapy
- Food Selectivity in Children with Autism
- Mel Heyman: Past, Present and Future of ARFID
- Picky Eating and Underlying Psychological Problems
- Have You Read the New “Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030”?
- Food Selectivity in Children with Autism
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