Is your child a fussy eater? The reason could be in their genes

Parents who are driven to distraction by their toddler’s picky eating can take comfort in the fact that it’s just as likely to be down to nature as nurture. According to research into the behaviour of 16-month old children, fussy eating and a refusal to try new foods are both heavily influenced by the child’s genetic makeup, and are not just a result of upbringing.

“That these traits were so significantly influenced by genes so early on really indicates how innate the tendency is, and that it is not because of the parents that are kind of moulding [children] into fussy eaters - it is already there when they are 16 months old,” said Andrea Smith, PhD student and lead author of the research from University College, London. But, she adds, shared environmental factors such as the home setting also play an important role, and parents should be reassured that fussy eating behaviour can be modified.

Writing in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers from the UK and Norway describe how they sought to probe the impact of genetics on the eating behaviour of toddlers by harnessing data from twins registered with a large UK project known as Gemini. More than 1,900 families with twins aged 16 months took part in the study.

Parents completed a questionnaire which investigated the eating habits of their toddlers, including whether the children enjoyed eating a variety of foods and whether they refused new foods. By looking at how similar the results were from identical twins (who share all their genes) compared with how similar they were from fraternal twins (who share on average 50% of the genes that make people different), the researchers were able to tease apart the influence of genetic factors on the eating behaviour of the children.

he findings showed that fussy eaters were also likely to reject unfamiliar foods, with many of the environmental and genetic factors common to both traits. What’s more, the results suggest that genes play a key role in the eating behaviour of the children. “At 16 months we found that overall 46% of the variation in food fussiness was explained by genes, and we found that 58% of food neophobia (rejection of new foods) was explained by genes,” said Smith.

Shared environment factors, such as home life, affected both traits, exerting an equal effect to genes on variations in food fussiness, but a smaller effect on food neophobia. That suggests that despite the genetic tendencies, parental actions can still influence toddler behaviour, the authors say. “We know that genes are not our destiny,” said Smith. “Parents can positively influence their child’s eating behaviours.” Smith says that parents should not force or bribe their child to eat a “problem” food but instead repeatedly offer it to the child outside of mealtimes and praise any attempt by the child to touch or smell it. It is not know exactly which genes are involved in influencing picky eating and the refusal of unfamiliar food, but Smith says that many genes are likely to play a role.

“There will never been one gene which is the food fussiness genes - they are a lot of different ones,” she said. “These genetic effects might be working through slight differences in personality in eating behaviours, in how sensitive individuals are to texture and flavours, to how extroverted and how open they are to new situations.”

While previous studies have highlighted the influence of genes on such eating behaviours in older children and adults, the new study, says Smith, shows that such genes exert a heavy influence from an early age. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, who was not involved in the study, agrees that the study offers parents an optimistic outlook. “Every kid is different,” he said. “There is a genetic tendency to be more or less fussy.” But, he adds, parents should take heart that such behaviour isn’t immutable. “You can modify it by changing the family’s habits, the way you present food to the child and the whole concept of the mealtime,” he said.

Smith, A. D., Herle, M., Fildes, A., Cooke, L., Steinsbekk, S. and Llewellyn, C. H. (2016), Food fussiness and food neophobia share a common etiology in early childhood. J Child Psychol Psychiatr

Links : https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/14/is-your-child-a-fussy-eater-the-reason-could-be-in-their-genes