Helen Veit, "Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History" (St Martin's Press, 2026)

Are children naturally picky? It sure seems that way. Yet, amazingly, pickiness used to be almost nonexistent. Well into the 20th century, Americans saw children as joyful omnivores who were naturally curious and eager to eat. Of course, this doesn't make sense today. Don't kids have special taste buds? Aren't they highly sensitive to food's texture and color? Aren’t children incapable of liking “adult foods,” and don’t parents risk harming kids psychologically by urging them to eat?
But Americans in the past didn’t think any of those things. They assumed that children could enjoy the same foods as adults, and children almost always did. They loved spicy relishes, vinegary pickles, and bitter greens. They spent their allowances on raw oysters and looked forward to their daily coffee. So how did modern kids become such incredibly narrow eaters?

The story is fascinating – and about much more than rising abundance. Picky: How American Children Became the Fussiest Eaters in History (St Martin's Press, 2026) by Dr. Helen Veit shows how fussy eating came to define "children’s food" and reshape American diets at large. Maybe most importantly, it explains how we can still use the tools that parents used in the past to raise happy, healthy, wildly un-picky kids today.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(600)

How Girls Achieve

How Girls Achieve points out a simple and overlooked truth: most schools never had girls in mind to begin with. That is why the world needs what Dr. Sally Nuamah calls “feminist schools,” deliberately...

1 Okt 1h 4min

Transient Becoming: Self-Improvement and Capitalist Virtuousness in Contemporary China with Gil Hizi (NUS Press, 2026)

How do individuals seek to become better persons in contemporary China? How do they navigate the complex demands of personal growth given the fragmentation of China’s moral landscape? Gil Hizi’s caref...

30 Sep 42min

Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America with Kevin M. Burton (NYU Press, 2026)

Shows how apocalypticism helped drive anti-slavery abolitionism and inspire progressive social reform in nineteenth-century America In March 1844, Melissa Botsford of Meriden, Connecticut, defiantly l...

27 Sep 42min

Pushpesh Kumar et al. eds., "Sociology of Gender in India: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Sociology of Gender in India brings together feminist and queer scholarship to chart the changing landscape of gender debates in Indian sociology. Spanning over five decades of disciplinary evolution,...

19 Sep 1h 8min

Class Struggle and the New York Mets: A Conversation with AM Gittlitz

With his riveting chronicle of the New York Mets baseball team, AM Gittlitz is emerging as a rising star in the field of popular social history. Writing with what the Wall Street Journal calls “the lu...

18 Sep 55min

Jim Gaona Ellis, "Educators As Designers: The Hidden Architecture of Learning" (Harvard Education Press, 2026)

An invitation to K-12 educators to reimagine their roles through the transformative lens of design In Educators as Designers, Jim Gaona Ellis draws on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and the lates...

17 Sep 50min

Ming-sho Ho, "Be Water: Collective Improvisation in Hong Kong's Anti-Extradition Protests" (Temple University Press, 2025)

During the eventful summer of 2019 in Hong Kong, the Be Water Revolution formed to resist the proposed extradition of fugitives to mainland China’s courts. With its name derived from martial arts mast...

13 Sep 46min

Billy Fleming, "Building Postcarbon Futures: Land, Justice, and Energy Transitions" (Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, 2026)

What would a postcarbon future look like? What would it take to build and maintain a more just, regenerative world? How would it feel to live—and to thrive—in that world? In Building Postcarbon Future...

12 Sep 1h 23min