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Comment by jeffbee | Hacker News Reader

I know every kid is different and I don't blame parents for picky eaters, but kids pick up their habits of food at home very early, before they are old enough to get them at school or from other kids. My kids, who are older, have never heard of fruit pouches, and neither have I. If a kid won't eat what you put in front of them that's their temporary problem. Eventually, they will.

I know I had it easy. The first food my first child demanded was more broccoli. But I like to think that's partly because I put the broccoli on the table in the first place.

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Eh, it's a fine theory but I have twins. One is the pickiest eater ever and getting her to eat is like an on-call sort of situation to be handled personally by mom or me. Her twin sister, these are 4 year olds, ate like 8 pieces of plain, steamed broccoli with her dinner last night. Her 2 year old brother is a great eater, too. The only difference (in routine and exposure to others) between the twin girls is that they're in different preschool classrooms. I've long suspected that she gets a lot of this behavior from other kids in her class.

At 4 y.o. they aren't just picking behavior from their kindergarten-mates, they're literally sharing food at every possible opportunity.

In this environment, awareness of varieties of snacks and kid TV shows both spread faster than infectious diseases.

Welcome my son

Welcome to the machine

What did you dream?

We told you what to dream

As a parent one of the worst things you get to witness is your kids being assimilated into the machine. Nobody wants it. Many try to fight it. All will lose. We've all been assimilated into the machine to some extent.

My hope is that when my kiddo starts going to school that we can maintain eating relatively healthy stuff at our house by acknowledging that "junk" food (we're going to try to avoid that term so we don't assign morality to food) exists, and we can absolutely eat it, but that different foods make us feel differently, and eating too much of that kind of food can make you feel sick. I just hope it works.

We called it "party food": soda, chips, candy, cakes, etc. That's not regular food. You consume that at parties and even then don't eat too much - you'll get sick. My kids are adults now and they regulate themselves pretty well.

> Eventually, they will

Toddlers can remain irrational longer than you can remain out of prison for starving them.

I had an extended period when I refused to eat anything at all except chocolate spread sandwiches. As an adult I'm not even sure where I would buy chocolate spread - is it near peanut butter? But my poor parents could either feed 4yo tialaramex chocolate spread sandwiches in that period or he'd go without food.

> Toddlers can remain irrational longer than you can remain out of prison for starving them.

Can I get this on a t-shirt to buy for every mom in my partner's mom group?? Jesus there is so much "you're giving your kids poison" type shaming in that group and it drives me nuts. It just stresses her out and doesn't help us out at all; we're lucky our kiddo eats just about everything (he loves frozen pancakes and applesauce pouches, but what can ya do?), so we just try to give him whatever we're eating. And we get so much flak for it. So what if the kid decides he wants to eat spaghetti four days in a row? It's calories in his body, which he needs a lot more than he needs fancy free-range blueberries picked under a full moon.

I am the cook in the house:

My first kid - great eater up until about age 1.5, then pandemic hits, and then everything became much more complicated for a variety of reasons.

My second kid - will eat really anything, but does show a preference for certain snacks which isn't surprising. But, also loves salmon, avocado, lentils.

My third kid (my wife - :) ) - A long-time carbs/cheese aficionado. Doesn't love a plate of broccoli or a bowl of lentils like I do.

I'm the strictest/healthiest eater by a large margin. At some point, you need some compromise in your system (my opinion, not suggesting for you)

I was VERY much in this camp. Worked great for two of my kids.

However, my third kid is absolutely willing to out-stubborn me on this one. She is a VERY picky eater (e.g., last night I had to fight with her to eat some food that she has eaten willingly before). If I let her she will simply go all day without eating rather than eating foods she doesn't want to eat. Not wanting her to be malnourished or develop an eating disorder, I pick my battles.

2 out of 3 isn't bad. All you can do is influence the odds.

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