All children become, sooner or later, picky eaters. But refusing to eat your vegetables can sometimes hide a more serious problem than you think.
It’s a classic, a story as old as time… Who has never heard their child say that they didn’t like Brussels sprouts? Of course, the phenomenon does not stop at this particularly hated vegetable – which remains the biggest pet peeve of toddlers, according to a survey by the Nestlé France Foundation conducted in 2018. Broccoli, spinach, salsify, fennel, endive, eggplant… It’s universal: vegetables are generally not popular among the youngest, unless you accustom them to diversity from an early age.
Moreover, according to this same survey, what children prefer to eat… are fries, closely followed by pasta, then ice cream. Unsurprisingly, and all parents know this, little ones generally have a very strong distaste for healthy foods. It’s often said: children are “difficult” at the table because there are many ingredients they hate. Most parents see it as just a whim, a phase that will pass with age. However, this is not always the case. In some children, this refusal to eat can hide another problem, sometimes underestimated.
Often confused with simply being “finicky” or even a bit of a pain, this behavior can be a sign of an avoidant or restrictive eating disorder. Described only since 2013, we still do not know precisely how many children and adolescents are affected: the figures vary between 2% and 15% of the population, according to different specialists. Doctor Véronique Abadie, from the general pediatrics and infectious diseases department at the Necker – Enfants Malades hospital in Paris, listed the common symptoms during a conference in 2024: “a sensory aversion to certain textures, tastes, colors, and more rarely the temperature, of foods”but also “a chronic lack of interest in food or a small appetite”or even “a fear of a risk associated with food”such as vomiting or choking for example. The risk? “A diet reduced to a very limited choice of foods”and therefore, growth problems.
Of course, most kids who are picky eaters eventually outgrow this phase. And when a child doesn’t like a food, don’t hesitate to offer it to him in another form: perhaps he will prefer grated carrots to cooked carrots? Another solution to get him to eat vegetables: mix zucchini or broccoli to put them in the pasta sauce! In any case, don’t lose hope, it takes time for the child to get their palate used to new foods and textures.
