Beggars can’t choose, but picky people can pick…poorly

If beggars can’t be choosers (which is, of course, a lie), why can picky eaters (particularly kids) get away with a diet consisting solely of highly-processed, mono-color packaged foods?

When I was little, I ate PB&J sandwiches every day for ten consecutive years. I only ate fried chicken strips or mac and cheese if I went out anywhere. And if I couldn’t get those things, I whined. I feel fortunate that my palate of acceptable foods underwent a long (and continuing) transformation, but the same is not true of everyone. And why should it be? Those foods I loved are among the array of eatables that best arrest human taste buds (sugar, salt and fat). For some, it can be a lifelong affair.

When I asked my parents what I ate as an infant, they did not remember a diet skewed towards junk, but rather a mixed bag of fruits, veggies (lots of autumnal roots) and dairy. So if not nurture, is it simply nature that draws us toward to not-really-food aisle? Can we blame our biological disposition to prepare for famine by storing up on fats, salts and sugar? Or can we blame the seduction of advertising exposed to most of us since infancy?

A recent article in The New York Times tries to pick apart the origins of our dietary habits. It basically comes out on the side of nurture, saying that parents are accountable for the lifestyle choices their kids make. The article focuses on the dilemma facing parents whose kids make poor nutrition decisions. The concern, now, is not just that some guardians may let kids run amok in candy land, but that that others may go too far demanding healthy behavior from their children. Researchers now see a spate of disordered eating resulting from being obsessively “healthy.” (Not surprisingly, obsessive “healthy” eating easily dips into the unhealthy category when it involves too few calories and nutrients to support an active, growing body.)

So, should adults just wait for teens to outgrow their unhealthy picks? And what about those who don’t have a health-conscious parent modeling good decisions—is their future diet predetermined? Certainly, the solutions to a growing diet-related health crisis cannot hinge upon such passive assumptions. The Times article includes a few examples of proactive parents, one of which has a mother sharing a gym membership with her teenage daughter who has gained some pounds. This may sound like a great alternative to ego-bruising lectures and unsustainable diets, but gym memberships aren't in the budgets for a large swath of the public.

Rather than focusing on ways to escape an unhealthy eating cycle, let's focus on making the cycle healthier to begin with. Until schools stop stocking and serving trash in the form of lunch, and until we hold the industry and nutrition communities accountable for their labeling schemes, the picks for pickiness won’t improve.