London - The refusal by children to eat new foods may not be due to fussiness but an evolutionary trait designed to protect themselves from harm, scientists have said.
Babies will put almost anything in their mouths. But as children get older, they become more selective about what they eat, particularly if they have not tried it before.
Green vegetables and meat can be particularly troublesome.
Scientists at the charity Cancer Research UK said thousands of years ago toxins in plants could have harmed children, and meat carried a high risk of food poisoning.
"So it makes sense that humans may have evolved to be highly suspicious of certain food types as youngsters," said Lucy Cooke, the lead researcher, who reported the findings in the journal Appetite.
She and her colleagues questioned 564 mothers of young children about their eating habits. The fussiest children liked potatoes, cereal and cakes but avoided vegetables, fruit and meat.
The researchers believe the behaviour develops when children become more independent as a protective mechanism.
"The problem is that strategies which were sensible for children to adopt thousands of years ago are not such a good idea now, and may be contributing to the low levels of vegetable and fruit consumption in the British population generally," Cooke added in a statement.