The Genetics of Your Fussy Eater

The Genetics of Your Fussy Eater

Parents across the globe have stared down their fussy eating children over mealtimes for centuries and over those centuries those same parents have often been blamed for their children’s frustrating eating habits.  Many parents have even doubted their own parental abilities when their children fought against broadening their diet beyond a short list of tastes and textures.  This study strongly suggests that genetics are more to blame than parental abilities, but even with such genetics, a window for some intervention opens during the toddler years.

Depending on which source or study you reference, food fussiness ranges from 6% to 50% of children.  This tendency to only eat a limited number of foods based on tastes and textures or resistance to trying such new foods, can drive parents a little crazy from the early years of a child’s life.  Multiple studies noted in the focus article suggest that this food fussiness fade as the child grows into teen years but can persist and contribute to nutritional and other health issues later in life.  At the very least, mealtimes during the child’s early years can become stressful as parents play the games of encouraging a broader diet for their child.

Without getting into the nitty gritty of the study, researchers used a cohort of British twins and followed them in an epidemiologic study through surveys of their parents.  Parents were asked to report on food fussiness behaviors at several time points in the children’s lives.  These reports were compared between identical and non-identical twins to estimate the contribution of genetics versus environmental factors.

Through statistical analysis, they believe that about three quarters of food fussiness patterns are explained by genetics with the remaining quarter explained by environmental factors.  This should bring some relief to all the parents who have long thought they somehow failed their children in those mealtime routines.

Beyond this sigh of guilt diminished for parents, there is also the indication that children with higher food fussiness do show decreases in that tendency over time into teen years although still different than those children who had lower scores to begin with.  The one weight that does remain on parents is that the window for decreasing food fussiness behaviors seems more open in the toddler years.  During the toddler years the environmental contribution (i.e. parental influence) was a little higher, meaning that parents can affect their children’s future eating patterns more so during toddlerhood.

As parents, we want the best for our children, but must remember that their genetics do influence traits beyond eye and hair color.  Behavioral tendencies of children are impacted by childhood experience, but genetics sets the stage.  Helping them achieve the healthier, more abundant life means learning to build on their inherent traits without blaming ourselves for those of their tendencies that are simply genetic and thus outside our control.

 

Original Article:

Zeynep Nas, Moritz Herle, Alice R. Kininmonth, Andrea D. Smith, Rachel Bryant‐Waugh, Alison Fildes, Clare H. Llewellyn. Nature and nurture in fussy eating from toddlerhood to early adolescence: findings from the Gemini twin cohort. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2024; DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.14053

 

Thanks to Science Daily:

University College London. “Food fussiness a largely genetic trait from toddlerhood to adolescence.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 19 September 2024. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024

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Sanctuary Functional Medicine, under the direction of Dr Eric Potter, IFMCP MD, provides functional medicine services to Nashville, Middle Tennessee and beyond. We frequently treat patients from Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, and more... offering the hope of healthier more abundant lives to those with chronic illness.