Parents, but not parenting, to blame for picky eating in kids, says new study

If you’ve ever:

• Watched an Instagram tutorial on blending seasonal gourds into pasta sauce to get more veggies into your child’s diet and thought, “Wait, kids eat sauce?”
• Asked your pediatrician how long your child can survive solely on blueberries. (“No, I mean literally just blueberries.”)
• Begged your child to at least lick the chicken nugget.

Then take heed.

A new study about children trying valiantly to survive on crackers, air and your last wisp of gentle parenting suggests picky eating is largely explained by genetics — and the researchers say they hope the findings will help alleviate parental blame.

The study, published Sept. 19 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, surveyed the parents of 4,804 twins born in the U.K. in 2007 from ages 16 months to 13 years.

By comparing identical and fraternal twins, the authors found that genetics largely accounted for the individual differences in what they call “food fussiness” at all ages. Genetics accounted for 60 per cent of the variation of food fussiness at 16 months, and rose to 74 to 84 per cent between ages three to 13.

They defined fussiness as “the tendency to eat a limited range of foods, often due to pickiness regarding flavour or texture, and/or the reluctance to try new foods and flavours.”

“Food fussiness is common among children and can be a major source of anxiety for parents and caregivers, who often blame themselves for this behaviour or are blamed by others,” lead author Zeynep Nas of University College London said in a news release last Friday.

“This behaviour is not a result of parenting.”

Picky kids, stressed parents

Trying to feed a picky eater can be incredibly overwhelming, even though nutritionally, a typical carb-heavy picky eating diet doesn’t have a big impact on your child’s health, explained Megan Wallace, an Edmonton-based registered dietitian who was not involved with the study.

But when you compare, it can make you feel “less than” as a parent, Wallace told CBC News.

“It becomes a really hard issue on confidence, and value, and whether we’re good enough.”

Previous studies have linked higher levels of parental stress with child “problematic eating behaviours,” including food fussiness. They’ve also found that fussy eating can increase a parent’s emotional distress.

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called it “comparison culture” in an August public health advisory — where parents feel burnt out from comparing themselves and their parenting strategies to what they see online. Murthy noted it’s often propagated by influencers and online trends that create unrealistic expectations.

And there is an extraordinary amount of pressure placed on parents to ensure children eat well, and even more online resources offering help when they don’t. 

Advice found online, in person and in Facebook parenting groups is often conflicting, and includes but isn’t limited to: never making your child separate meals, only making your child separate meals, offering zero alternate options, offering a buffet of alternate options, positive reinforcement, zero reinforcement, getting your child involved in cooking, and just letting your child live off blueberries if that’s what he damn well wants.

And Instagram accounts like Feeding Littles, Kids Eat in Color and Yummy Toddler Food — which respectively have 1.9 million, two million, and 1.4 million followers — offer tips, advice, online courses and recipes for protein-packed pumpkin bars and blended broccoli pasta sauce to help your children have what they view as a good relationship with food.

Meanwhile, social media abounds with influencers who swear “clean eating” saved their children, trad wives roasting their own nut butters to spread on freshly baked sourdough and your high school friend who swears her children absolutely adore curried chickpeas. (Jesus wept.)

‘Completely disheartening’

Laura Chevrefils’s four-year-old son Joseph currently eats just three meals: Lipton chicken noodle soup, peanut butter and jam sandwiches, and chicken fingers. He’ll eat fruit, but his only vegetable is cucumber.

“If I had a dollar for all the unsolicited advice! If we’re not getting it from social media, we’re getting it from our family members,” Chevrefils, 44, of Winnipeg, told CBC News.

Chevrefils says they often expose Joseph to new foods, eat meals as a family, and she never forces him to try anything — but given the choice, he’ll choose hunger. She adds she often turns to social media accounts like Feeding Littles for tips and inspiration, only to feel defeated when they don’t work.

“It’s completely disheartening, exhausting, and to be quite honest, you start to feel like a failure,” Chevrefils said.

Both the U.K. study authors, and Wallace, the registered dietitian, note that environmental factors still play a role in picky eating, especially in the toddler years.

Significant developmental factors are also at play for some children, such as neurodivergence, said Wallace. Even neurotypical kids can experience neophobia, or a fear of new things, as part of their typical development, she said.

“There are so many factors as to why a child might pick up and put something in their mouth, and why they might not,” Wallace said.

So what can parents do?

Although picky eating has a strong genetic component, that doesn’t mean it’s completely fixed, senior study author Alison Fildes of the University of Leeds said in a news release.

“Parents can continue to support their children to eat a wide variety of foods throughout childhood and into adolescence, but peers and friends might become a more important influence … as they reach their teens,” she said.

The Canadian Paediatric Society offers a variety of tips on its website for parents, including avoiding distractions such as screens while eating, providing at least one food you know your child likes at every meal, and giving small portions of everything.

Wallace says the key is increasing exposure, which also includes letting kids look at, smell, touch, squish and play with new foods. These sensory explorations need to happen, she said.

“We were taught not to play with our food. That was rude and offensive,” Wallace said. “But you can talk to any child psychologist about how kids learn, and they learn through play.”