What’s eating picky eaters? Well, it might be innate.
Feeding kids with persnickety palates is a daily struggle plaguing parents worldwide — but new research now asserts that the problem could lie in a little one’s DNA, rather than whatever mom or dad made for dinner.
“Children’s fussy eating is a major cause of concern for caregivers, who often blame themselves, or are blamed by others, for their child’s restricted diets or food rejection,” behavioral health specialists from the University College London noted in a Sept. 19 report.
The experts defined “food fussiness,” or “FF,” as, “the tendency to eat a small range of foods, due to pickiness and/or reluctance to try new foods.”
“This study indicates that FF is under strong genetic influence,” said the analysts, “which can remain influential throughout childhood.”
Finicky foodies, both young and old, are at higher risk for health issues due to their limited diets.
Academics recently warned that allowing a tot to omit certain fare, and only consume their preferred snacks — typically hot dogs, Mac and cheese, and pizza — can prompt a condition known as Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder, or ARFID. The disorder causes a fear of the act or sensation of eating certain foods.
Nature Mental Health, a UK Biobank, also found that youngsters who carry their restrictive regimens into adulthood have worse cognitive function than folks with broader tastes for all of the food groups.
But University College London academics endeavored to identify the root of food resistance in certain people.
The team surveyed the parents of 2,400 sets of identical and fraternal twins across the UK, with tykes ranging in age from 16 months to 13 years old. They found that genetic differences in kids accounted for 60% of the variation in food fussiness at 16 months, rising to over 74% between the ages of 3 and 13.
The investigators compared the food fussiness similarity between fraternal twins, who share 50% of their genes, to the food fussiness similarity in identical twins, who share 100% of their genes.
Examiners determined that the fraternal pairs did not share the food fussiness similarity as much as the identical pairs, indicating a large genetic influence.
Environmental factors — like sitting down together as a family to eat meals and the types of foods that are eaten at home — also play a significant role in picky eating tendencies, but only during toddlerhood, per the findings.
Clare Llewellyn, a senior author of the study, said in a release: “This suggests that interventions to help children eat a wider range of foods, such as repeatedly exposing children to the same foods regularly and offering a variety of fruits and vegetables, may be most effective in the very early years.”
And Zeynep Nas, the senior study author, hopes her research alleviates the parental shame and blame most mothers and fathers feel during the fight to get baby to eat.
“This behavior is not a result of parenting,” she assured, adding, “fussy eating is not necessarily just a ‘phase’, but may follow a persistent trajectory.”
