Children Who are Fussy/Picky Eaters

[Tropicalsenior]

23 minutes ago, heidih said:

You wanna try dragon fruit ($$$) at Granville Market - ok we will give it a shot.

What you just mentioned is a great example encouraging adventure in a child. One of Michael's favorite places to go when he was little, was the Pike Place Farmer's Market, where he could sample anything and everything. Some of the vendors that he goes to now remember him as a little child and proudly point him out as someone that they have been serving for over 40 years.

He was never told that he couldn't try something and no matter how revolting it looked to me I never let on. The quickest way for a parent to turn any child off a food is to say, yuck.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[weinoo]

1 hour ago, KennethT said:

I don't know....  my parents never asked me what I wanted (unless it was a birthday dinner) - my mother made the same thing for all of us and that was that.

Pretty much the same here.

 

However, I don't recall my dislike of anything that was served, since most everything that we were served was fairly benign.

[Jacksoup]

I was a picky eater as a child and in some ways still am.  My brother not at all. I didn’t eat meat until I was 12.  Family MD told my mom I was too lazy to chew. Red sauce with ground beef was acceptable. BBQ hamburgers and hot dogs were my gateway.  Then well cooked bacon.  Ate every vegetable. We had a salad every meal, my parents felt it was a luxury to live In California where the vegetables were so abundant.  Mom was from Kansas, Dad from Texas and we were barely blue collar. Didn’t and still don’t drink milk.  My only real issue now is any hunk of fat in meat or overly fatty mouthfeel.  My son is much less picky than I am but as a child could eat red bell peppers and cucumbers every day.  

[Anna N]

We seem to have strayed a long way from the premise of this topic.

 

I’m still interested in the original premise which as I understand it asked why the OP had no experience of seeing or knowing about children who were picky eaters in China. What is happening in China that is not happening in the West to give this impression?
 

 

[Tropicalsenior]

6 minutes ago, Anna N said:

What is happening in China that is not happening in the West to give this impression?

My guess would be, the demise of the family dinner table. I would guess that with the pandemia, the idea that everyone sits down and eats together at the same time has come as a shock to a lot of people. Maybe it will also change some families' eating habits.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[Honkman]

1 hour ago, Tropicalsenior said:

we sat down to dinner together and everyone ate the food that was set on the table

That should be pretty much the end of the discussion

[Margaret Pilgrim]

1 hour ago, cteavin said:

 

Plug those same children into WWII where there's nothing to eat and those tastes will disappear quickly.

"Nothing to eat" is the crux.    I was a young child during WWII with strict rationing.    My mother sourced as well a she could but there were many foods I chose not to eat.   Mostly offal.   There were enough vegetables from the victory garden that our plates generally had several things on them, and meat is not a daily necessity.  Of course, if you were subject to starvation rations, like a friend who grew up in wartime Netherlands and whose family resorted to tulip bulbs, or a friend from Crete during Nazi occupation who said they lived off horta (wild greens) and snails, you would eat anything that kept you alive.l

Edited June 16, 2021 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[Eatmywords]

7 hours ago, liuzhou said:

No one said it was better. It was just used as an example. I see no overtones of morality or judgement

You don't think 'fussy' and 'picky' is judgmental?   You might as well call it "Western brats who eat but nuggets/fries and the parents who allow it"  

 

When westerners began making enough money (middle class?) to afford options eventually it trickled down to the children allowing for the dilemma we're in now.   Does your observation include the children of the affluent?  It will change there too.  Give it time.   

[liuzhou]

28 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

You don't think 'fussy' and 'picky' is judgmental?

No, I don't. They are both long established descriptors. Calling them 'brats' would be. Also, 'fussy' or 'picky' do not include the parents.

 

28 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

Does your observation include the children of the affluent?

 

Yes. The poorer classes dont tend to hang around restaurants much.

Edited June 16, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[KennethT]

28 minutes ago, Eatmywords said:

You don't think 'fussy' and 'picky' is judgmental?   You might as well call it "Western brats who eat but nuggets/fries and the parents who allow it"  

 

 

I don't think so...  I was an extremely picky kid.  I say that about myself with no judgement - it is what it is. Or was.  How about "selective"?  I was a very "selective" child? hehe

[Anna N]

Apparently there are children who are picky eaters in China.  Of course, nobody said there were no such kids, only that they were not observed by @liuzhou! 
 

Here.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

As suggested above, we need to give Asian cultures their due for excellent and delicious treatment of green vegetables.    They celebrate them; we suffer them. 

[Steve R.]

4 hours ago, weinoo said:

Pretty much the same here.

 

However, I don't recall my dislike of anything that was served, since most everything that we were served was fairly benign.

Sorry we didnt know each other when we were kids.  I could've invited you over for dinner.  The various canned vegetables, "cooked" to a boil, were real treats.  Especially the canned asparagus.  My mother only had salt in the house: not even black pepper or garlic made the cut.  

[Tropicalsenior]

39 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Apparently there are children who are picky eaters in China.  Of course, nobody said there were no such kids, only that they were not observed by @liuzhou! 
 

Here.

I found it very interesting that after all the information that they provide on the danger to children who are picky eaters, they conclude with this.

"Moreover, there is limited knowledge of the eating behaviours of Chinese pre-schoolers".

[liuzhou]

17 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I found it very interesting that after all the information that they provide on the danger to children who are picky eaters, they conclude with this.

"Moreover, there is limited knowledge of the eating behaviours of Chinese pre-schoolers".

 

That is typical. Hedge your bets!

I'd be very careful with 'academic papers' from Chinese sources. About a decade ago, the Party decreed that all members must produce such papers and have them published  or risk being passed over for promotion. This lead to the setting up of 'paper farms' which churn out these papers for a sutable fee. People buy them then 'publish' them in magazines set up just for the puurpose. The 'writers' of the papers pay to have them published, too. They are not peer-reviewed; they are only cash reviewed.  I know of no western universities who accept them. They are notorious in academic circles.

I am frequently asked to 'help' translate these papers. The so-called authors are required to have a brief summary in English, but many hope to have 'their' papers published in western publications. Extra points for that!

So they offer me money to translate them and send me samples to see if I am willing to do the job. These usually arrive still on the farms' headed notepaper. Most of those I see are from medical staff in the local hospital. I am no medic (often neither are they) but even I can see they are nonsense which has no chance of being accepted by any serious academic journal.  I always find that I am "too busy" at the time to help and so, decline.

Now, I'm not saying that the one @Anna Nhas linked to is necessarily of that genre; I'm just saying be very wary.

Edited June 16, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[Tropicalsenior]

5 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

be very wary

I found the article interesting until I read their conclusions or non-conclusions. Total gobbledygook!

I just kind of wondered... The West has picky eaters so China must have them, too?

Edited June 16, 2021 by Tropicalsenior (log)

[liuzhou]

1 minute ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I found the article interesting until I read their conclusions or non-conclusions. Total gobbledygook!

 

Normal.

[Anna N]

14 minutes ago, Tropicalsenior said:

I found it very interesting that after all the information that they provide on the danger to children who are picky eaters, they conclude with this.

"Moreover, there is limited knowledge of the eating behaviours of Chinese pre-schoolers".

That’s not in the conclusion. That is in the introduction. That’s one of the reasons for the study — to learn more about the behaviours. Here is the paragraph immediately following your quote. 
“Therefore, our research was conducted to estimate the proportion of pre-schoolers’ picky eating behaviour in China, to investigate possible associations between picky eating behaviour and children’s growth and development (including weight, height, BMI, intelligence, and z-scores about weight, height, and BMI), and to identify corresponding potential mechanisms, such as nutrient and food subgroup intake, as well as micronutrient levels in the blood.”

 

 

[Anna N]

11 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

I'd be very careful with 'academic papers' from Chinese sources.

Not at all a Chinese source!  

[liuzhou]

7 hours ago, Anna N said:

See this.

We seem to have two parallel discussions going on here. 

 

I started the other topic in the vain hope that people putting posts here (and elewhere) about children's food choices might go there instead of a topic which is supposedly about non-dessert dishes which might be mistaken for desserts.

In one centralised topic, future members wishing to search for a discussion on children's choices have a better chance of finding it. Few, I suspect, would think,  "I want to find a forum about fussy eaters; I'll search for 'not dessert'.

[Tropicalsenior]

7 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Not at all a Chinese source!  

Article information

PLoS One. 2015; 10(4): e0123664.

Published online 2015 Apr 13. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123664

PMCID: PMC4395402

PMID: 25875004

Yong Xue, 1 Ai Zhao, 2 Li Cai, 1 , ¤a Baoru Yang, 1 , ¤b Ignatius M. Y. Szeto, 1 Defu Ma, 2 Yumei Zhang, 1 ,* and Peiyu Wang 1 ,*

Jacobus van Wouwe, Academic Editor

1 Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China,

2 Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China,

TNO, NETHERLANDS,

Competing Interests: The investigation was supported by China Mengniu Dairy Stock Company Ltd, This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Conceived and designed the experiments: PYW YMZ YX. Performed the experiments: YX AZ LC DFM. Analyzed the data: YX LC IMYS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AZ YMZ YX. Wrote the paper: YX AZ LC YMZ PYW BRY.

¤aCurrent address: Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

¤bCurrent address: Food Chemistry & Food Development, Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku, Turku, Pori, Finland

* E-mail: nc.ude.umjb@uyiepw (PYW); nc.ude.umjb@iemuygnahz (YMZ)

Received 2014 Jun 13; Accepted 2015 Mar 6.

Copyright © 2015 Xue et al

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Articles from PLoS ONE are provided here courtesy of Public Library of Science

[liuzhou]

9 minutes ago, Anna N said:

Not at all a Chinese source!  

 

Yes, the link you provided is not to a Chinese source, but where did they get it? As they say

 

Quote

NLM is not a publisher, but rather collects, indexes, and archives scientific literature published by other organizations.

 

Everything about the paper (language, layout etc. ) tells me it is Chinese in origin. In fact, the study was funded by a Chinese dairy company and carried out at Chinese universities.

 

Quote

The investigation was supported by China Mengniu Dairy Company Ltd, and carried out in cooperation with the school of Public Health in Suzhou University, Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Zhengzhou University, and other universities.

 

Edited June 16, 2021 by liuzhou (log)

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, Tropicalsenior said:

Article information

PLoS One. 2015; 10(4): e0123664.

Published online 2015 Apr 13. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0123664

PMCID: PMC4395402

PMID: 25875004

Yong Xue, 1 Ai Zhao, 2 Li Cai, 1 , ¤a Baoru Yang, 1 , ¤b Ignatius M. Y. Szeto, 1 Defu Ma, 2 Yumei Zhang, 1 ,* and Peiyu Wang 1 ,*

Jacobus van Wouwe, Academic Editor

1 Department of Nutrition and Food Hygiene, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China,

2 Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China,

TNO, NETHERLANDS,

Competing Interests: The investigation was supported by China Mengniu Dairy Stock Company Ltd, This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Conceived and designed the experiments: PYW YMZ YX. Performed the experiments: YX AZ LC DFM. Analyzed the data: YX LC IMYS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: AZ YMZ YX. Wrote the paper: YX AZ LC YMZ PYW BRY.

¤aCurrent address: Department of Maternal and Child Health, School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China

¤bCurrent address: Food Chemistry & Food Development, Department of Biochemistry, University of Turku, Turku, Pori, Finland

* E-mail: nc.ude.umjb@uyiepw (PYW); nc.ude.umjb@iemuygnahz (YMZ)

Received 2014 Jun 13; Accepted 2015 Mar 6.

Copyright © 2015 Xue et al

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC.

Articles from PLoS ONE are provided here courtesy of Public Library of Science

It was  accepted  into the National Library of Medicine which certainly gives it considerable credibility.

“The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world’s largest biomedical library, produces trusted health information used by health professionals, students, researchers, innovators, medical librarians, and the public to advance medicine and improve public health. In partnership with other parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies, NLM is the key link in the chain that translates biomedical research into practice, making the results of research readily available worldwide.”

 NLM.

Many medical articles will disclose funding from commercial interests. Somebody has to pay for the research. Disclosure of funding

[gfweb]

2 hours ago, Steve R. said:

Sorry we didnt know each other when we were kids.  I could've invited you over for dinner.  The various canned vegetables, "cooked" to a boil, were real treats.  Especially the canned asparagus.  My mother only had salt in the house: not even black pepper or garlic made the cut.  

 

My brother!

[gfweb]

5 minutes ago, Anna N said:

It was  accepted  into the National Library of Medicine which certainly gives it considerable credibility.

“The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world’s largest biomedical library, produces trusted health information used by health professionals, students, researchers, innovators, medical librarians, and the public to advance medicine and improve public health. In partnership with other parts of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies, NLM is the key link in the chain that translates biomedical research into practice, making the results of research readily available worldwide.”

 NLM.

Many medical articles will disclose funding from commercial interests. Somebody has to pay for the research. Disclosure of funding

 

NLM doesn't judge the paper.  The journal does that. NLM trusts the journal.