\n<\/p>\n
It is a well-established fact that when you want a child to eat, they will not.<\/p>\n
I did not always know this. Before I became a parent, I labored under the misconception that the rules would not apply to me. That a child\u2019s refusal of perfectly good, perfectly healthy food reflects some deficit in child-rearing, and naturally would not be a problem for me, a professional food writer, whose love of food is in fact genetic. No, I reasoned with woefully unearned confidence, my child\u2019s palate would be as expansive as the Great Plains. As vibrant as a Van Gogh. As thoughtful as a sonnet.<\/p>\n
Well.<\/p>\n
When my daughter was three, she unexpectedly became a viral internet sensation after a noted social media personality spotted her ham-fisting a pickle at the farmers market, devouring it in the manner of an ice cream cone. The comments cooed what a good eater she was, that \u201cPickle Girl\u201d was their \u201cspirit animal,\u201d and so forth. Lies! I screamed in my head. All lies!<\/p>\n
In reality, Pickle Girl had precipitously tumbled off her growth curve just months earlier. Getting her to eat anything (pickles aside) was a daily struggle, and one doctor even suggested that I stop feeding her anything but red meat in an attempt to get her weight up. I smiled to that woman\u2019s face and privately refused, instead dosing everything my daughter allowed past her lips with copious amounts of butter and oil.<\/p>\n