When Did Fussy Eating Become A Competition?

Erin is quite the fussy eater and it can be a nightmare to get her to eat a proper meal. While she’s at nursery she eats really well and has cooked meals on the days she is there. Erin’s nursery is attached to a private school and all of the children eat lunch together so this encourages her to do the same as her friends are doing. At home though, we struggle. I think Erin would live on cereal and toast if we would let her. Luckily, she really likes fruit so we always have that available to her.

Every now and again I go online to try to find some fussy eater recipes or advice. Erin is constantly changing so I like to try different things with her to see if she might finally try something etc.

While there are loads of great websites and blogs offering recipes there are also forums full of people making fussy eating into a competition. I generally stay out of forums but I couldn’t help myself this time. My search for a recipe had taken me to this particular forum and while the recipe was there it was everything else, the replies, that kept me reading.

Instead of being a place where people offered advice and help for the person asking for it, the whole thread turned into a competition.

‘Oh, that’s not fussy at all. My child only eats this or that,’

‘You call that fussy? My child barely eats anything’

This is the kind of thing I was reading but some of the replies were much harsher. Some people were calling out the original poster saying they shouldn’t even be in a fussy eating forum. I guess this kind of thing is why I tend to stay out of these kinds of forums in the first place normally. Really, who makes it a competition about whose child is more fussy and why?

As parents I think the majority of us could say that we’ve had it hard in one way or another. It might not be with fussy eating but I’m sure we’ve all had something we could have used some help with. It’s such a shame to see other parents going against each other instead of offering a helping hand.