Picky : How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History

An eye-opening investigation into why American kids no longer eat broadly and with gusto.

Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans saw children as joyful omnivores who were naturally curious and eager to eat. Of course, this doesn't make sense today. Don't kids have special taste buds? Aren't they highly sensitive to food's texture and color? Aren’t children incapable of liking “adult foods,” and don’t parents risk harming kids psychologically by urging them to eat?

But Americans in the past didn’t think any of those things. They assumed that children could enjoy the same foods as adults, and children almost always did. They loved spicy relishes, vinegary pickles, and bitter greens. They spent their allowances on raw oysters and looked forward to their daily coffee. So how did modern kids become such incredibly narrow eaters? The story is fascinating – and about much more than rising abundance. Picky shows how fussy eating came to define "children’s food" and reshape American diets at large. Maybe most importantly, it explains how we can still use the tools that parents used in the past to raise happy, healthy, wildly un-picky kids today.

About the author:  Helen Zoe Veit is an award-winning historian and writer. An associate professor of history at Michigan State University, she is the director of the What America Ate and America in the Kitchen projects, was an advisor for HBO’s The Gilded Age, and is a former editor of Gastronomica. She is often cited in NYT, WashPo, WSJ, and more. Her book Modern Food, Moral Food was a James Beard Award finalist, and her edited volume Food in the Civil War Era: The North won a Gourmand International award.