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WHY do poor children have poor diets?
Some commentators contend that healthy diets are too expensive. Others argue that wholesome options are affordable and that junk foods that seem cheap are hardly a good deal. But both camps overlook what most parents know well: Children are picky.
Finicky eating can frustrate any parent. But pickiness has particular effects on the poor. By understanding these effects, we can do more to improve the diets of low-income children.
I spent over two years studying how 73 Boston-area families decided what to feed their kids. Some families made more than $100,000 a year. Some made ends meet with little left over. Others were poor. I wanted to know how parents actually choose what to feed their families, given the situations they face and the resources they have. I quickly learned that poor parents not only have to calculate how much their food costs, they must also consider what happens if no one eats it.
Describing her grocery-shopping routine, a poor mother from South Boston with a 3-year-old son quickly highlighted waste: “I get my food stamps on the 5th and I try to make them last for a month, but that’s really difficult because toddlers waste a lot of food.” When another poor mother’s kids refuse what she cooks, she thinks of things she could have purchased instead. In the direst cases, parents worried that if children rejected food, someone else in the family would go without.
The problem isn’t poor children. According to psychologists, most children treat new foods with trepidation. Often, they accept novel offerings only after eight to 15 attempts. But kids across the world learn to like a staggering array of edibles, in large part by tasting foods repeatedly. When children try a variety of options, they approach unfamiliar foods less gingerly. Experiences stick. Preferences learned in childhood often persist.
For the poor parents I met, children’s food rejections cost too much. To avoid risking waste, these parents fall back on their children’s preferences. As the mother of the 3 year old said: “Trying to get him to eat vegetables or anything like that is really hard. I just get stuff that he likes, which isn’t always the best stuff.” Like many children, her son prefers foods that are bland and sweet. Unable to afford the luxury of meals he won’t consume, she opts for mac and cheese.
I met plenty of poor parents who wished that their children liked healthier food. But developing their children’s palates has hidden costs. When I asked her about offering cauliflower 10 times to shape her son’s tastes, a poor mother from a town outside Boston said: “No. No. That’s a lot of wasted food.” This mother faces an uncomfortable choice: She can experiment and risk an empty cupboard, or she can make her food last by serving what her son likes, even if it’s not the healthiest and even if she feels guilty about it.
Wealthier parents didn’t face this trade-off. These parents met plenty of mealtime challenges — time scarcity, resistant children, the emotional toll of serving an unappreciative audience. The cost of waste posed fewer concerns. One middle-class mother has hated fruit all her life. But she offered her daughter a host of fruits early on. When I asked her about the cost of possible food rejections, she said, “Honestly, it never crossed my mind.”
But the poor parents I followed had little leeway to ignore waste. One mother strove to provide healthy food on a budget. She cooked rice and beans or pasta with bruised vegetables bought at a discount. These meals cost relatively little — if they’re eaten. But when her children rejected them, an affordable dish became a financial burden. Grudgingly, this mother resorted to the frozen burritos and chicken nuggets that her family preferred.
To consume a variety of nutritious foods, children need to acquire new tastes. This is an opportunity that many families cannot provide. Schools can familiarize children with nourishing foods through gardening, experience-based nutrition education and healthy school meals. Because many schools lack the funding to expose children to varied, wholesome foods, it is essential to expand the promising programs that have begun to address this problem.
Pediatricians and nutrition educators can also suggest how to reduce waste. Recommendations could include offering foods that are shelf-stable and easily divisible, like frozen fruits and vegetables, so parents can offer small amounts repeatedly without generating excessive waste. Parents’ preferences are also part of the solution. When parents eat foods from apple to zucchini, they can offer children a bite with less risk of waste. Cooking and food education classes can help to shape parents’ tastes, too.
Many parents I met struggled with their kids at mealtime. Many fell back on their children’s favorites when time and energy ran low. And some poor parents used food to make their kids happy amid hardship. But they also faced a hidden cost to fostering
When we think about whether families can afford a healthy diet, we must keep this hidden cost in mind. Let’s start by talking less about how the poor are failing and more about how to help families provide the food their children need.
