There are better ways to reduce the likelihood that your kid doesn’t become a fussy eater.
Like have you even actually asked them why they don’t like broccoli? And damn, it’s not exactly the healthiest, but if your kid only eats broccoli with grated cheese on top, that’s still better for them than not eating broccoli at all.
It also just feeds into this weird narrative that there’s only a small variety of foods that you just HAVE to eat to be healthy.
There’s soo many foods and they’re not expensive, you do not have to eat foods that you don’t like to eat a healthy diet. You can find replacements, you can use different herbs or different cooking methods to make it something that you actually want to eat.
I’m also not a fan of how this kind of approach to food makes it seem like healthy food has to taste gross. Real great message to teach a kid!
Also it’s just a shitty thing to do to someone. Imagine telling someone who literally depends on you for survival “Oh I’m going to make you starve unless you do what I want”
They’re growing kids too, they need food, taking it away is abusive. That’d be like depriving them of water because they didn’t pick up their toys.
no one in the real world actually gives a shit if you do or don’t eat something, and if it something more personalized like a birthday party or being invited over for a meal, people are going to ask you what foods you like.
No one is going to go up to you and be like “We’re eating brussel sprouts, if you don’t like it you can leave.”
Even if that doesn’t happen and there’s no food there that you like, you can just bring your own or not eat, no one is going to care.
And if it’s a big event like a work gathering, literally no one is going to care that you didn’t get a plate from the sushi buffet.
I’d also like to mention that in these cases, it is absolutely not “impolite” or “entitled” to not eat or to even refuse food. People have preferences and are allowed to say no, if you have a problem with that then you’re the one being rude.
The whole “Oh but I can’t do this thing for you because then I have to do it for everyone” is just a bullshit excuse people use to not be considerate of others.
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Just get off the Internet and eat your broccoli Ralph.
I was one of those kids. I’m 23 now, and if I don’t have something I know I’ll like, I straight up won’t eat. I’ll go days without eating, and it’s not because I’m being stubborn, it’s because I literally can’t force myself to eat it
I think a lot of kids think certain foods taste “gross” because compared to stuff like mac n cheese or chicken nuggets and dipping sauce, it’s not as sweet and those kids crave that sweetness. Idk but I always ate and like everything on my plate and now I eat pretty much anything. I do think that too many parents coddle their children when it comes to food simply because it’s easier to appease the child
That’s how you end up with chicken nugget adults
Kids can be ridiculously stubborn and fussy. They will refuse to eat something, but if you lie and day it’s something else they will love it.
Some parents do give up and just give the kid anything they will actually eat and they end up eating nothing but crap.
Yeah this opinion screams privilege. The biggest reason I have heard people say this is because food is scarce, or can be sometimes, and you don’t have the option not to eat it, it’s all that’s there….
As an adult being invited to events does not normally include asking what you want to eat (sometimes weddings have choices) parents want children to be able to behave gracefully in all circumstances
I think the modern way of doing this is ‘you must eat a few pieces even if you don’t like it’. The whole plate is never broccoli so don’t know where the ‘starve’ comes in in most instances.
There’s a balance between allowing your child to completely dictate everyone’s meals and not eat well enough for their own health and a draconian approach. But there are certainly parents who don’t push hard enough to expand their kids’ diets beyond nuggets and chips. Which is likely another unpopular opinion, but oh well.
People in this comment section don’t know the aftermath of this and it shows.
No, not forcing your kids to eat food they dislike is not making them end up as “chicken nugget adults”. No, it’s definitely not a privilege to feed your children properly. No, not every child is just “stubborn and fussy” and that’s definitely not how you get them to eat. No, not forcing a child to eat disliked food will not make then “too soft”.
This is some heavy confirmation bias mixed with simply hating children that’s going on there.
If any of this above were true for everyone, why can so so many adults testify how harmful this behaviour was? And no, they are not making this up or exaggerate. Some end up with eating disorders, others “just” with unhealthy relationship to food, others may come out lucky. But why risk it?
I was treated like that and it actually made the whole situation a lot worse and even now as an adult I try to work on the damage it has caused.
I like coming here because it reminds me just how wrong people can be.
My kid has Arfid. He’d just die.
I disagree on both sides. It should be somewhere in the middle.
I have seen assholes calling others picky eater just to manipulate others to eat the food they don’t like. I also have seen kids becoming spoiled if not getting disciplined.
So, it should be sonewhere in the middle.
I’m guessing you’re in your room after a dinner where you had to eat some food you didn’t like? Mom is mean af. “This is what we’re having, eat it or don’t.” is not even close to the same thing as your little “Oh I’m going to make you starve unless you do what I want” example. I guess this is unpopular? More the typical uninformed though.
My mum cooked one meal and that’s what we got. My parents ate it, we kids ate it. We all got the same thing.
Sure you could choose not to eat it, but that’s what’s for dinner.
I think people coddle kids too much
Congratulations, the internet now knows you don’t have kids.
Let us know how that goes in the future, buddy. Good luck, and if you succeed, good job on raising entitled brats who let food go to waste and live in a shell where they always have to get what they want.
Even as an adult, sometimes you have to eat stuff you don’t like, be it for financial, or MORE IMPORTANTLY, health reasons.
I absolutely hate veggies, but I have to man up and eat them because I owe it to my family to take care of myself so I can live longer. It would be extremely selfish to live on a diet of delicious pasta and bread, not to mention rude to my wife when she cooks and I say, “I don’t want that shit.”
My parents were of that mindset but I was a stubborn kid, so I would just prefer to “starve”.
I wasn’t that picky though so they just found vegetables that I liked to eat.
It can go too far though, I know some parents who only feed their kids chicken nuggets and plain pasta because that’s all their kids will eat. And that can’t be healthy for them in the long term.
Anthony Bourdain had an interesting approach to the subject with respect to getting the kid to eat while subtly encouraging them to not be so picky over time but not forcing it. Giving them whatever simple food they’d insist upon if it was easy so that they at least get fed, while yourself eating something actually healthier and perhaps more “adult” and just acting like “oh you wouldn’t want this” just to passively challenge them to try new things because it would trigger them to jump at it or insist upon it if it was seen as “too grown up for you.”
Granted, not everyone has the means, time, patience, etc for that method and I can’t imagine he was consistent or that he always had that type of patience, but I appreciated the idea as one of an array of options. Not going to tell a parent how to parent.
You know, I’m yet to meet any person who on purpose makes food that their kids don’t like and then just tell “eat, or starve”. And I know bunch of parents in real life, cause I’m a parent myself.
Usually it’s like:
So yeah, unless you are rich and have personal chief, there’s no way that you are going to cook multiple dishes every day just to be told “no!!!!” and feed your child unhealthy snacks in the end, cause those are always a hit. So yeah, my child can deny food I’m giving him (that he actually wanted a second ago), but I’m not going to continue cooking. It’s eather that or nothing.
You opinion is unpopular, so you get an upvote.
I was Fussy as a kid and didn’t like a lot of foods. I have no sense of smell. Slowly trying to get me to eat like ‘a reasonable person’ I lost any will to eat food. The ‘eat a little of the bit you don’t like’ always turned into ‘you’ve eaten that much you can eat the rest of it’ and eating in general became just too much to deal with. Knowing i can’t eat anything i like without things i really hated for a ‘balanced meal’ just became not worth it. And then I had someone tell me how I’m supposed to eat the food and in what order. Having to utterly change the texture of the bit I liked because it’s ‘normal’ to have a bit of everything in one bite so none of what I was eating I liked was kind of the last straw. I had professionals realise something was up when I was living on a little milky bar pudding a day for months when my dad was sick. They didn’t do anything but I started to try to deal with everything after that myself in my own way. Nothings going to get me to eat peas again or baked beans but I can manage some things I couldn’t before and I stir fry all my veg and eat it. I’m 42 and still struggle with food sometimes.