I frequently quip that if I drew a food pyramid to depict what my child actually eats, it would have a broad, solid base made up of carbs, like mac and cheese, and fruit, a fatty middle part made up of dairy, but let’s be real, largely cheese. The peak of it would be a triangle that is almost miniscule and would stand in for the two veggies he occasionally consumes (carrots and cucumbers).
Even while I like to think of my son as a one-of-a-kind unicorn in a variety of ways, I know from my shared regrets with other parents that, at least for many American children, his eating habits, however particular they may be, aren’t all that unusual (culture has a big influence on our food preferences). A lot has been written on how to feed toddlers and young kids whose eating habits are similar to those of my son and don’t stray far from staples like macaroni and cheese, flavored yogurt, and fruit (give or take maybe a chicken nugget or hot dog).
I began to ponder why children enjoy the meals they do. These eating preferences in our children either developed spontaneously or as a result of social influences.If you think about a typical toddler’s favorite foods, many of them have either sweet (fruit, juice, flavored yogurt, and anything sweetened) or salty (cheese, chicken nuggets, hot dogs) flavor profiles. Meanwhile, their oft-shunned foods (hi, green veggies) tend to be bitter. Scientists believe this has evolutionary roots.
Studies show that babies have a biological predisposition for sweet tastes before they’re even born. And there’s a purpose for this. While you may associate sweetness with sugar-sweetened junk food (not exactly a survival imperative), sugar is an easy form of energy, which young children need. “If you’re developing, you have energy needs,” says Rachel Herz, PhD, senses and emotion scientist and author of Why You Eat What You Eat.
In addition to signifying calories and carbohydrates, sweetness is a predominant taste signal for human milk, says Julie Mennella, PhD, researcher at Monell Chemical Senses Center. So an infant’s hankering for sweetness primes them to like breast milk. But children don’t outgrow this preference once they leave infancy. Throughout childhood, kids gravitate toward sweetness, which could explain a toddler’s preference for sweet foods, like fruit, juice, or flavored yogurt.
