Show me a picky eater and I’ll show you someone whose parents were picky eaters.

One thing I’ve tried avoid during the first 11 months of my daughter’s life has been making healthy foods seem weird or like a punishment of some kind. I believe parents who say things like, “Eat your vegetables or you won’t get any dessert” will raise kids who grow up to like dessert more than vegetables.

My daughter loves spinach because, for one, it’s delicious but also because I don’t make a big deal out of feeding it to her. I don’t cringe while waiting to see whether she likes it or not. I don’t hold a cookie in the other hand as her “reward” for her finishing the leafy, green veggie.

Lily also loves sweet potatoes, bananas, squash, peas, apples, carrots. As do I. The difference is, it took me maturing into an adult before I started appreciating many of those things. She already has a head start.

We are all heavily influenced by our parents, from our work ethics to our religious beliefs to our politics. Our diets are no different. For instance, a relative of mine has been a finicky eater since childhood. He would much rather eat frozen chicken nuggets than any kind of fruit, vegetable or even bread. I always found it a little weird, until I learned his dad doesn’t eat fruit or vegetables. Like father, like son.

To me, this all seems like common sense, but research has also borne out that what children eat in their infancy influences their diets for years to come. Eleven studies published recently in the journal Pediatrics and conducted by such agencies as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggest that parents should introduce children to fruits and vegetables at around 10-12 months of age to start them on a pattern of healthy eating.

One of the studies found that while infants may squint or wrinkle their noses after the first spoonful of a new vegetable, they are generally more than willing to try another bite.

Another study determined that infants who are given sugar-sweetened beverages late in infancy are twice as likely to be obese by age 6.

The research also showed that — shocker! — children were more willing to try fruits and vegetables if they saw their parents eating them.

To go on another tangent: When I see someone feeding a small child greasy fast food and soda these days, it almost seems like child abuse, with all we now know about the dangers (and causes) of obesity and diabetes. I don’t think we should even call children obese; that makes it sound like they bear some blame. Instead we should refer to them as “kids of irresponsible parents.”

Just like you shouldn’t burden your children with your neuroses about life, you shouldn’t pass on your fussy eating habits to them. Your baby is a clean slate, with no preconceived opinions about green beans or broccoli or beets. Don’t cloud them with your own biases against healthy food.

And just like you shouldn’t treat homework or reading as a punishment, with television and video games the reward, you shouldn’t have chocolate cake be your child’s prize for finishing his cauliflower. To revise an old idiom: Don’t use a carrot as the stick.

http://wellcommons.com/photos/2014/sep/15/279012/