One possible humorous reason there is an explosion of picky eaters is because of the breakdown in the traditional family. In the old days father, mother, siblings, child and extended family ate the same thing breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Nobody (even adults) in the child’s life had food options, ergo the child doesn’t automatically think it has options. If anybody complained or had a reason to eat his own thing in the traditional family it was the father, and he never complained publicly or to his wife, as she has her own list of complaints about him. Thus, dad preferred to eat what everybody else ate, just with the caveat of the biggest piece of chicken. This universalism in meals also made weight control and maintenance that much easier. If you were big (fat), you really were ‘big boned’, proven by the fact that every day you eat the same portions everyone else in the family eats as a general rule, but you are noticeably bigger.
