Suspicious glances and closed mouths, nagging and temptation that rarely yields results. The feeling of frustration when a child refuses to eat what is offered is familiar to many parents. Most children have a period when they only eat certain things, and as an adult, it can easily lead to both irritation and guilt feelings.
But it's not about the food or the environment, but mostly about genes, according to a study from the UK. The researchers, through questionnaires to parents, have studied eating behavior in 2,400 twin pairs.
To distinguish genes from environmental factors, the eating behavior of identical twins who are genetically identical was compared with that of fraternal twins, who have a 50 percent genetic similarity.
According to the results, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, genetics explained 60 percent of how picky children were at 16 months old. At 13 years, it explained 74 percent. In adolescence, friends also start to influence what type of food you eat.
But the type of food children ate at home and whether the family ate together also played a role. These experiences are shared between twins and are therefore not genetically determined.
The main message is that how picky children are with food does not depend on parenting. There are actually genetic differences between us, says Zeynep Nas, one of the researchers behind the study, to The Guardian.
According to the researchers, a "picky peak" occurred at the age of seven.
