How Children Learned to Hate Food
The Bulwark • • health
Key Points:
- Helen Zoe Veit's book "Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History" reveals that picky eating is a recent American phenomenon, contrasting with earlier periods when children ate a wide variety of foods alongside adults.
- Historical evidence shows that children in colonial and 19th-century America consumed diverse diets, often including foods now considered unusual for kids, reflecting cultural norms and physical labor demands that fostered hearty appetites.
- Advances like refrigeration, changes in child labor laws, and the rise of nutrition science led to shifts in children's eating habits, including increased snacking and the introduction of bland, carefully managed diets, which contributed to decreased appetite at mealtimes.
- The rise of aggressively marketed, ultra-processed snacks
