Picky
How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An eye-opening investigation into why American kids no longer eat broadly and with gusto
"Veit is a wonderful writer who brings to her subject a wealth of research and an attitude of refreshingly nonideological neutrality... If you have ever sat at a restaurant, marveling at the bilge offered on the kids’ menu and wondering how on earth we got here, Picky has the answers." ―The Wall Street Journal
"We loved the book."―Mark Bittman, author of How to Cook Everything
"Upends our assumptions about the foods children can and will eat with gusto."―Bettina Elias Siegel, author of Kid Food
Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans saw children as joyful omnivores who were naturally curious and eager to eat. Of course, this doesn't make sense today. Don't kids have special taste buds? Aren't they highly sensitive to food's texture and color? Aren’t children incapable of liking “adult foods,” and don’t parents risk harming kids psychologically by urging them to eat?
But Americans in the past didn’t think any of those things. They assumed that children could enjoy the same foods as adults, and children almost always did. They loved spicy relishes, vinegary pickles, and bitter greens. They spent their allowances on raw oysters and looked forward to their daily coffee. So how did modern kids become such incredibly narrow eaters? The story is fascinating – and about much more than rising abundance. Picky shows how fussy eating came to define "children’s food" and reshape American diets at large. Maybe most importantly, it explains how we can still use the tools that parents used in the past to raise happy, healthy, wildly un-picky kids today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The picky eating habits of contemporary U.S. children were far from inevitable, according to this enlightening study from historian Veit (Modern Food, Moral Food). For much of history, children had the same varied diets as adults, she explains, detailing how 19th-century kids happily gobbled up vegetables, organ meats, and spicy relishes. Back then, however, it was common for children to die from disease, and well-intentioned if misguided reformers blamed parents for allowing children to eat indiscriminately. They encouraged feeding children bland foods, laying the groundwork for the idea that kids require different diets than adults. Over time, the advent of shelf-life-extending technologies, processed foods, and targeted advertising made snacking commonplace, dampening children's appetites around mealtime. Changing beliefs about child-rearing also played a part; in the 1950s, for example, Dr. Benjamin Spock popularized the idea that it was psychologically risky to urge children to eat food they didn't want. These and other developments have perpetuated the notion that children are naturally picky eaters—a myth, Veit expertly argues, that promotes unhealthy diets that leave kids undernourished and overweight. She buttresses her case with intuitive solutions like limiting snacking and avoiding offering alternatives to rejected meals. The result is a rigorous and persuasive call for change.
