The Huffington Post reports that Dr. Myles Faith, associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina, claims that picky eating (also known as food neophobia)is the result, not of bad habits or simple stubbornness, but of heredity.

A study by Dr. Faith involved 66 pairs of identical twins four to seven years of age. It showed that 72 percent of a child’s food avoidance is the result of genes, according to a statement issued by the university. The remainder is influenced by environment: factors ranging from having the television on during meal time to whether a family sits down to eat together can affect a child’s eating habits. Studies involving adults and older children
apparently produced similar results.

You begin to wonder whether it is worth the pain and bother to try to bring up children in a normal way at all when scientists continue to show that genes, not common sense, win out.

I am no scientist, but I have a suspicion that putting so much down to genetics is overdone. In any case, good Epicureans will always do their best to be good role models. Give the child what he or she likes as long as it is healthy. If children don’t want to eat, then let them go hungry until the next meal. It must be tempting to let them fill up on junk food, which does them no good at all. Meanwhile, make it clear that, if you are in someone else’s home, and they have gone to a lot of trouble to be hospitable, then you eat what has been prepared, and to hell with your genes. Epicurus was a courteous man.