The Reading History Project: "Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History" by Helen Zoe Veit

Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History by food historian Helen Zoe Veit doesn’t fit into my 2026 reading plan as far as reading history books advocating for the “our” in our shared history is concerned. Unless someone wants to argue that we’re all supposed to eat a particular way and, therefore, yes, I’ll make a stand for the picky eaters. I am, after all, dealing with a second generation of them, myself. Even without a personal connection, Picky is my favorite type of history book in that it deals with the impact of events on individuals and how we came to be the way we are. Veit does a fine job with this, though I think she stopped a little short.

According to Veit, documents such as letters and journals indicate that children in mid-nineteenth century America most definitely were not picky eaters. They ate an array of foods we don’t associate with children, or maybe even with adults these days. They ate, in fact, what their parents ate. There was no special food for children. What this may mean is that the people who recalled their eating as children in letters and journals ate the same things their parents ate. There may be another population of people who did eat differently as children, but no documentation exists. But that doesn’t change the fact that, historically, picky eating was not a universal childhood experience. Veit explains why childrearing, in terms of feeding, was different then than it is now.

Child mortality was high in the nineteenth century, though. By the end of the nineteenth century, some health/food activists (they did have them back then) suggested diet could be a cause. Veit says the general public didn’t show much interest in that, but it does lead into what would start happening during the Progressive Era.

Veit mentions the Progressive Era by name a few times. For those of us who missed it in history class, it was the period from around 1890 to 1920 (the exact dates vary depending on the source), when reforms were enacted. On state levels you might see improved funding for education. The Sherman Antitrust Act was passed early in the period. The 18^th and 19^th Amendments, prohibiting the sale of alcohol and legalizing women voting were passed toward the end of it. (The eugenics movement in this country was also considered a Progressive reform, to be honest here. I have a hard time not including that with my thinking about early twentieth century progressives.)

This era coincided with a move toward specialization in the professions. You start seeing different types of medical specialties, for instance. Home economics and nutrition become fields, possibly because of women were entering higher education. Home economics and nutrition were considered “women’s interests,” but at this point they were also considered scientific and important. 

So you’ve got a period when people are interested in reform and you’ve got professional fields that are interested in food. Voila! Kids should eat different foods!  Oh and you’ve got an adult population that’s becoming more and more educated, so parents become aware of food studies and recommendations for children through magazines and government publications, as well as whatever their doctors were telling them.

At this point, drinking milk is now considered important for children. This didn’t happen in earlier periods, because without refrigeration (or knowledge of the germ theory of disease), milk wasn’t considered safe for humans to drink. Because it wasn’t. Bringing milk, and a lot of it, into children’s diets was significant, because milk is filling. There had also been little eating between meals in the nineteenth century, which begins to become more common. Filling children up on milk and snacks left them less hungry to eat whatever was put in front of them at meal time. 

By the 1930s you start seeing kids doing less. They’re not working on farms as often, because families are moving to urban areas. They’re not walking as far to schools. They have less opportunity to work up appetites. Another reason why kids are less hungry when they come to the table at mealtime than they used to be.

You start seeing talk of picky eating among children now. It’s definitely a thing by mid-century. Then psychologists get involved. Then post-World War II, you get all kinds of unhealthy prepared food appearing as well as marketing to sell it. Marketing to both adults and children.

Veit makes a very good argument that American culture created the picky eating phenomena. To me it seems as if no other result could be expected given how we were living.

In her Epilogue, Veit offers a list of suggestions for combating picky eating. “Mass childhood pickiness resulted from a series of concrete changes, and parents who understand those changes can directly combat the causes of pickiness today.” This struck me as odd for two reasons.

First, I can’t recall historical works offering information on how to deal with or reverse the issue of the book. This may be a result of my not having read enough history.

Second, Veit doesn’t address a few historical/cultural changes that would impact parents’ ability to follow her suggestions. It's as if she stopped short in documenting the chain of events that got us to the state of child pickiness we're now dealing with, leaving a gap that could have a big impact on parents' ability to "combat the causes of pickiness today."

1. While Veit shows us that pickiness goes back at least to the mid-twentieth century, she never considers what happens to all the picky child eaters who existed over the last seventy years. Did they outgrow pickiness? Or did they become picky adults who will be limited in their ability to model healthy eating for their children and make the changes Veit recommends?
2. Veit only mentions “overscheduling” children in passing. However, kids, and their parents, being tied up with after school and evening activities, prime dinner prep and eating time, goes back at least until the 1980s if not longer. We now have three generations for whom that lifestyle is a norm. That means adults have limited time to prepare the kinds of meals Veit describes and families have limited opportunities to eat them together.
3. Veit never addresses the increase in ADHD and autism. Both those conditions can be accompanied with sensory issues that make eating difficult. Neurodivergent children's (and adults') eating situations are not cultural and would require different kinds of interventions with different kinds of results that can be expected.

Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History is a terrific book in which the author does an excellent job of explaining how we came to be as we are. It just doesn’t do as good a job of convincing us there’s something we can do about it. But I don’t know that that’s history’s job.