It was a stat holiday this Monday – which means that neither myself or my husband had to work and my kids didn’t have school. We spent a fun day at our local science center and got home just after 4pm. Fortunately, I had pre-planned for hamburgers, so I had ground beef defrosting in my fridge and had taken buns from out of the freezer too. This way we could still get dinner on the table for 5.
The Menu
Our quick and easy menu included:
- Barbecued Hamburgers with mozzarella cheese
- Romaine Lettuce with Carrot Ginger Dressing on the side
- Pears (because I have a big bag quickly getting over-ripe in my fridge)
- Leftover blueberries from the snacks I packed for the science centre
- Extra slices of mozzarella cheese
What they ate
Both my kids like “hamburgers” for dinner and happily came to the table – though it is worth noting that while one of my kids had a burger on his bun, my other son opted to have 3 cheese buns (cheese and buns but no burger). Both their plates were empty at the end of the meal.
But why does one of my kids eat “everything” and the other one doesn’t?
You may have noticed that kids naturally seem to be more or less picky. From my own childhood, I remember thinking that my older sister was a much fussier eater than I was. But why?
Why would kids who live in the same house have different food preferences? Presumably the food environments (the foods that are offered) are basically the same. So I decided to check out the research that has studied children’s food preference, specifically as it relates to nature (my kid just being their own unique self) vs nurture (what foods as caregivers we offer).
The article that I found that seemed to do the best job exploring this question was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2014 and was written by Alison Fildes and colleagues.
In this study they compared monozygotic (identical) twins to dizygotic (fraternal) twins. They compared identical twins to fraternal twins because identical twins share 100% of their DNA compared to 50% for fraternal twins. This helps show how changes in DNA-overlap impact the response. Using twins also helps keep the environment roughly the same.
They asked parents to rate their kids food preferences using a scale of -2, -1 (for not liking), 0, 1 and 2 (for neutral, and liking) on 84 commonly consumed foods. They then grouped these individual foods into 6 food groups.
Overall, identical twins showed greater similarity in preferences for fruits, vegetables and protein foods. Interestingly preference of snacks, dairy and starch appeared less heritable.
This suggests that kids will have innate preferences for fruits, vegetables and protein foods and this appears to be stronger than environmental effects. However, snacks, starch and dairy products appear to be less heritable and preferences are more likely to be related to the environment. One limitation of this study is that used parental reports vs kid report, however as they asked about so many different foods, this strengthens our ability to trust these results.
So what?
Kids will have innate preferences for foods – and this effect appears to be stronger for fruits, vegetables and protein foods.
However the foods that you offer still matter – especially for snack foods, dairy and starch (like breads, rice and noodles).
So keep trying but don’t get too discouraged – if yours kids aren’t eating something don’t get too discouraged, it may just be their DNA.
