Across the world, there is huge variation in what children eat. In many cultures, there is little or no distinction between children’s food and adults’ food. Children eat what everyone else eats, learning tastes, textures, and food habits simply by being part of shared meals. So where did the idea of ‘children’s food’ come from?

In All Manners of Food [1], sociologist Stephen Mennell traces some of the roots back to Victorian Britain. During this period, eating became less about sensory enjoyment and more about discipline. Children were trained in civilising table manners – disrupting eating from sensory enjoyment.

Victorian ideas about childhood also shaped what children were fed. Plain ‘nursery food’ was thought to protect delicate digestions. In some cases, children were deliberately given food they disliked, on the belief that enduring unpleasant meals would build moral fibre.

There were anxieties about texture, too: fruit, freshly baked bread, and vegetables were all treated with suspicion. Vegetables were often cooked until soft enough to be pressed through a colander. But as Bee Wilson notes in First Bite [2], while familiarity can help children learn to like new foods, exposure under stress or coercion often has the opposite effect, creating lasting aversions.

Children are evolutionarily predisposed to prefer sweet flavours and be cautious of the (potentially poisonous) bitter. And who would grow up to love vegetables if the only version they’d ever eaten was watery, overcooked, and joyless?

Children’s Food in the UK Today

Today children’s food looks very different, but the underlying assumptions remain. What we now consider ‘children’s food’ is typically sweet, plain, and quick. The Victorian idea that children should suffer for the sake of moral fibre has disappeared, as have strict table manners. Foods are designed to be dunked, twisted, and eaten on the move.

Yet the belief that children can’t or won’t eat the same foods as adults persists. ‘Healthy’ food is often still positioned as the opposite of what children actually want. Vegetables remain something to be negotiated, hidden, or avoided.

What was once considered children’s food is now what many adults eat too. Our food preferences are formed early, and with ultra-processed foods making up a significant proportion of adult diets [3], it’s clear that these early patterns matter. Children are driven to love these foods by their sweet taste and soft textures, designed in labs precisely to be delicious and addictive. Advertising aimed at children, as well as food environments which make ultra-processed foods the go to option help solidify their position in early life. New regulations have banned junk food adverts before 9pm, but spending on outdoor advertising has gone up by 28% between 2021 and 2024 and they’re six times more likely to show up in poorer areas [4]. To challenge the giants of the food industry and change diets, many changes are required, and an important place to start is with changing tastes.

Changing Tastes through exploration

At TastEd, we somewhat share a Victorian preoccupation with children’s diets – but with a very different philosophy. We believe that access to healthy, nutritious food is a right and that the first step to changing diets is not restriction or pressure, but sensory exploration.

Nurseries and primary schools offer a unique opportunity to reach all children early in life and help build healthier tastes that can last a lifetime. They are also spaces where food is offered outside familial relationships – relationships in which preferences and tastes are often deeply intertwined with love and emotion. In these settings, children may be more open to trying new foods than they would be at home.

The Victorians were wrong – children don’t need to be coerced into liking vegetables. They need opportunities to explore them. When children encounter vegetables and fruit in a joyful, pressure-free setting alongside classmates and friends, we see them become curious, confident eaters. Food doesn’t need to be framed as a test of character or a battle of wills. Greens don’t have to be a punishment when they can be such a pleasure!

Of course, it isn’t easy. When we try to support positive change in children’s diets, we’re working within a food system that isn’t primarily designed with children’s health in mind. The opportunity to explore and become willing to try new vegetables and fruits is the crucial first step, but fresh produce also needs to be available and affordable. Sensory food education, backed by strong food policy, is essential to restoring fresh, real flavour to our plates.

Further reading:

• Favourite food memories from childhood around the world: https://museumofchildhood.ie/childhood-meals-around-the-world/
• Katherine Rundell on children’s books, imagination and food: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n02/katherine-rundell/why-children-s-books?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
• A recipe from nursery food/school dinners past – Sago and Tapioca pudding: https://britishfoodhistory.com/2023/08/21/sago-and-tapioca-pudding/

References:

1. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present, Stephen Mennell, 1995
2. First Bite, Bee Wilson, 2016
3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/articles/chris_van_tulleken_ultra_processed_food_swaps
4. Bite back’s campaign targets fast food advertising: https://www.biteback2030.com/our-campaigns/give-us-a-commercial-break/