I am 60 years old. There were no picky eaters when I was a kid.
This might be true in your area of knowledge of your universe, but overall it is absolutely completely categorically NOT true.
My father has six siblings, and some of them, including HIM, were picky eaters.
My mother was picky. She was FORCED to eat what the family ate. She had an abusive father, and that's how he *forced* her to eat. Be beaten, or eat, basically. She ate. And after the meal was choked down, she had to run from the table to throw up what she ate (I'm now realizing why she was SO skinny!). This was usually caused by meat, she was a natural vegetarian but didn't know it (and was happy when she finally went veggie when she was in her late 40s), but since her father DEMANDED meat on the table every night, she threw up most every night.
It wasn't true 38 years ago either, once my brother was born. I was a "good eater". I was also the peacekeeper in the household. My brother would eat what he wanted to eat, and WOULD NOT eat anything else. If that hamburger had anything but bun, meat, and ketchup, NOPE. If it was PB&J sandwich, NOPE. He hated jelly. He LOVED honey. I'm the opposite; honey smells like spit to me (and of course it is, bee spit), but I'd take honey in my tea. One day we grabbed the wrong lunch bags. I dealt with the PB&H sandwich. He brought the PB&J home, and ate a bigger dinner because he wouldn't eat the jelly.
One time my mom got sick of it and made him stay at the table until his food was eaten. He was maybe 3 at the time. We were going into hour 2, I believe, and I came in and ate them for him. I was 5. I needed the strife to stop, and so I took care of it. He would have stayed there all night.
Our half brothers, from my dad, were picky from the start, and just as stubborn. Many a meal was ruined for me by those boys. It was AWFUL. They would happily sit there for hours and hours. They didn't care. They never ate what they were told to eat.
When their sister was born, my dad was in his 50s and had given up. So there were no ugly scenes, but she was just as stubborn, and still would barely eat. Thankfully, my mom and stepmom were avowed nursers, so no toddlers were going hungry, and my half sister was lucky enough to get mama milk for 5 years, because otherwise there wasn't going to be much else. She would eat plain white rice, plain chicken, & M&Ms (it's fun having older brothers who are much older than you). By 10 she had expanded to chicken nuggets.
Now...who in this scenario do you think has the allergies? Hint: it's NOT the kids who protected themselves by not eating things they would gag on! Answer: it's the peace keeper, the one who would eat everything on her plate, even the things that made her turn green. I didn't protect myself, and therefore I hurt my body. My siblings are all healthy as horses. And as adults, they have expanded their palates. My full brother who would only eat plain burgers and PB&H sandwiches will eat big Mexican meals with vegetables and various textures and all of that. I've even seen him eat a salad. As adults, palates might expand.
As for me, once I was off in college and more independent, I went vegetarian (making my food limited), and I will not eat something if I find anything distasteful about it. I'm protecting myself now.
But there have ALWAYS been picky eaters. It just depends on how abusive their parents were willing to be in order to FORCE them to eat something.
Ok Im getting tired of hearing about kids that are picky eaters. How the parents say that thier children will only eat chicken nuggets, pizza, hot dogs, & mac and cheese and how picky they are. Well stop feeding them those things.
A child is going to be a picky eater if you limit what you offer them or stop offering them something simply because they do not like it at this moment. If you consistently offer them (and make them taste) a variety of fresh fruits, veggies and proteins prepared in various ways, then sooner or later you will have a child that is an "adventurous" eater.
Some people here should have met my siblings when they were younger. They've obviously never met a truly stubborn kid.
You can't force a child to do two things: Eat and potty train. As parents, it is our job to OFFER a healthy diet, and ENCOURAGE trying new things, but you simply cannot force a child to eat. There are MANY picky eaters out there that will simply choose to not eat rather than try something they find offensive. My two kids are like that.
OP, be grateful that you don't have picky eaters. You have no idea how difficult it is. Medical or not, there is an underlying reason for ALL forms of picky eating. It's usually not the parent's fault.
My father was SUPER picky as a toddler/young child. Apparently, he went through a phase where he would only eat tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. This lasted for two years, then he moved on to PB&J. This was back in the 50's...turns out, we're pretty sure he has Aspergers syndrome, which explains the picky eating, among other things. Today, my dad will eat anything that's not moving anymore.
Yep, you can't force a truly stubborn person to eat. Unless there's abuse involved! And if they do eat, if they are like my mom...then that's just a huge waste of food.
It's good to know that your dad was picky too (I mean, not *good*), as it shows that there are "older" picky eaters.
My son was very happy with the cheese pizzas (especially at Sanaa), and the mac&cheese (b/c he doesn't get the industrial stuff at home), and I'm sure some people watching him would have raised their eyebrows. But they weren't there when we figured out, thanks to an error at the CBR table service place, that he is happy to eat carrots if he has *mustard* to dip it in, they don't see that he will eat a whole thing of Trader Joes hummus, etc etc etc. But WDW didn't have the tasty stuff he loves, so he ate the blander stuff he also loves. No big. Thanks to the lessons my younger siblings taught me, I know that, since it's just taste and not serious problems, an even more expanded palate will come in time.
Hugs, sweetie. I feel your pain. I didn't see your thread yesterday and I don't know what advice you were offered or your specific question, but I can tell you that at nearly all of the buffets that we have eaten at in Disney, they have bowls of whole fruit and green apples were always in them. I know this because that is one of the few fruits I can get my little one with sensory issues to eat, so believe me, I noticed because that is something he almost always chose. We went to Biergarten and he ate a piece of chicken breast (plain, white chicken he calls it) and a green apple, LOL. Whatever, he found something he liked and DH, who loves German food, was happy. Not saying that's where you want to go, that was just my example.
! Although we don't always try to just cater to the kids it would be great if there is something they can eat at the restaurant since we will be paying anyway and they have to eat. Too bad they have taken away burgers from so many kids menus. Only one of my children will eat pasta of any kind, not even mac and cheese. Interestingly my kids are very much a mix (one loves pizzas the others don't eat it etc. etc) but the one thing all 3 will eat is a burger. Therefore for me a place that has burgers, pizza, chicken nuggets etc fits the bill where everyone can eat. It is a vacation and meant to be fun, a rare experience in our lives as the most we can have any kind of vacation is every other year. I also think kids menus are way to limited at disney, as many only have 3 total choices and having 3 kids myself I often find there is nothing on there that one of them will eat. After all as an adult I would be very insulted to go to a restaurant that only offered 3 choices!
