Picky Eating Isn’t Just a Phase, Study Finds

TUESDAY, May 26, 2020 (HealthDay News) — For parents hoping their “picky” eater will grow out of it, a new study may be unwelcome news.

Researchers found that choosy 4-year-olds were still turning their noses up at many foods at age 9 — suggesting their finicky eating is more of a trait than a phase.

The study, which followed over 300 children, found three patterns: The majority were consistently middle-of-the-road when it came to food fussiness — sometimes shunning unfamiliar cuisine, but remaining relatively open to trying new foods.

A sizable minority (29%) consistently ate everything their parents offered up.

Then there was the picky 14%. From age 4 to 9, they routinely refused new foods and maintained a limited culinary repertoire.

Still, researchers saw bright spots in the findings, published May 26 in the journal Pediatrics.

For one, there were no signs that picky eaters were underweight. And the fact that the fussiness seems to be a trait — and not a failure on the parents’ part — might bring some solace.

“It can be very stressful for parents to deal with a picky eater,” noted senior researcher Dr. Megan Pesch, a pediatrician at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor.

But if parents think they did something wrong to cause it, she added, these findings suggest otherwise.

“It’s not your fault,” Pesch said. “It seems to be part of a child’s disposition.”

Nor do the findings mean that parents cannot do anything about picky eating, she stressed. The study merely followed families to see what happened naturally — and did not test any intervention to change kids’ habits.

What does seem clear is that mealtime ultimatums do not help.

In this study, mothers of picky eaters reported more efforts to control what their child consumed — including limits on sugary, fatty foods. (When kids are high on the finicky scale, Pesch noted, they often stick to those types of foods.)

Despite those battles, children’s fussiness held strong.

In fact, coercion is probably destined to fail, according to Nancy Zucker, director of the Duke Center for Eating Disorders at Duke University in Durham, N.C.