A few weeks ago, a study made its way into my mailbox, my socials, and my mind. It was about the link between prenatal exposure to specific flavors and facial expressions at age three. The study did not measure the amounts of veggies eaten – it was just about smell.
Basically, they measured facial expressions, indicating that when a child would, for example, cry when presented with that flavor, it could be interpreted as, ‘okay, this child is rejecting this veggie by smell’.
Kale versus carrot in the womb
Let me start by giving you a heads-up about the setup of the study. In their late pregnancy (32 and 36 weeks), the mothers-to-be ingested capsules containing either kale (a bitter flavor) or carrot (a non-bitter flavor). Three years later, researchers held a scented stick in front of the child’s nose and observed their reaction.
Now, this field of research genuinely fascinates me and triggers my geeky side. It was a small study, and by the 3-year follow-up, the number of available participants was reduced to 12. Regardless of this small sample size, they found some significant correlations, indicating that children, 3 years after exposure in the womb, respond less negatively to the odor component of the flavor they were repeatedly exposed to in the last trimester of pregnancy.
The study’s findings are part of a much bigger puzzle: how is our food behavior influenced not only by what we do as a family, but also by our entire prenatal environment? Truly fascinating. But what’s even more fascinating – and concerning – is how quickly this kind of research influences what we think we should do in our own homes. Because research is wonderful, but it is not a moral statement. It’s supposed to be objective. And it’s very telling to observe how easily we move from an interesting paper to: okay, so what are we supposed to do now?
From ‘could’ to ‘should’
‘Getting children to eat their vegetables starts in the womb’. That was one of the press headlines covering this study. And I understand why, having worked in the press myself – but they went very quickly from ‘here’s what happens in the womb’ to ‘here’s how a mother should eat’.
For me, this is distressing. The story went from the womb as a research environment to the womb as a controlling environment. And not just controlling the outcome – raising a varied eater – but controlling the mother’s eating. And where is our agency in that story? Where is the right to say no? Where is the right to connect with our own bodies?
In this storyline, the responsibility to raise a ‘perfect eater’ – which, by the way, is never actually the point – also fully lands on the mother. And not just any mother, but a mother-to-be who may be extremely fragile, potentially nauseous, sometimes struggling to get even a few calories in. We are aware. We know we are growing a human being. But knowing that doesn’t mean we can – or should – eat kale on command.
If I had read this article without my dietitian background, I would have thought ‘Oh my God, I need to eat kale or something terrible will happen to my baby’. That’s not the fault of the research. That’s the fault of how we perceive it, and how the press frames it, and how that framing piles into the mental backpack we’re already carrying – a backpack already loaded with responsibilities. And then, oh yes, we should also lower our stress, right?
My (dis)functional nutrition knowledge
When I was pregnant, I was deep in functional nutrition. I knew about gut health, about how my microbiome would influence my baby’s. I had books, studies, and monthly classes. I was bathing in knowledge and ready to implement it at a level I’d never reached before, because this was the most important thing I’d ever done.
And then I was nauseous. I craved Rice Krispies. I wanted Flemish potato purée. Especially in the first trimester, I could only eat my childhood comfort foods, my safe foods. I was not diagnosed with HG, just normally nauseous, as they say. And with every bite, I felt ashamed. Failing. Incapable. Judged – mostly by myself. I was my own harshest mirror.
I was already on the edge of not eating enough. And if every calorie also had to meet some quality standard on top of that, I was heading somewhere tricky. Luckily, I wasn’t exposed to these kinds of studies at the time. If I had been, I think it would have made things even harder. I probably would have tried to make kale appealing to myself, possibly crossing real limits in the process.
Because our body is a boundary between our inner and outer world. And eating something you are genuinely disgusted by – that is a boundary being crossed.
The cost of swallowing a promise
Interestingly, the researchers themselves first tried using juice, but the mothers didn’t accept it. So they switched to capsules – flavorless, and, so it continues in the press article, bringing these capsules on the market could be an easy, low-cost prevention healthcare intervention.
For me, thinking about giving kale capsules to pregnant women is not a low-cost intervention. This is a high-risk one. Because when we remove someone’s agency – even once, in the name of health – it can easily become a pattern. We start swallowing things not because we want them, not because we enjoy the flavor or the recipe or the craving. We swallow them because we’ve been sold a promise: ignore your needs, possibly also your caloric needs, and something good will happen for your child.
And when we lose that agency, we often end up in a rabbit hole. Stressed, controlling, overloaded. And research actually supports this – the same study looked at maternal mental health and found that maternal stress, depression, and anxiety were associated with more controlling feeding practices. Meaning that a stressed mother is more likely to control her child’s eating. This is one of the primary risk factors for a child developing a disordered relationship with food. Which makes the intervention itself almost counterproductive.
Another cost is that we are immediately pulled into this stream of thinking: the biggest thing I need to prevent is having a child who doesn’t eat veggies. But from what I know – and this is a genuinely fascinating field – there are many reasons why kids don’t always prefer vegetables and and this is what you’ll hear in my audio library Family Food Waves. There are also many reasons why picky eaters, or selective eaters, are the way they are, and why that is not, by definition, a problem.
Now, I know that having a selective eater in the house can be very, very challenging. I know this because I have one in my house and I accommodate him every day – and it’s not as hard as you might think. The hardest part is, of course, working on my own relationship with food in order to accommodate his way of eating. And yes, if you are facing very selective eating, you might be presented with some truly frustrating, even mentally draining challenges. Not just once, but multiple times a day. And this is, of course, also how I help you as a dietitian.
Boundaries crossed twice
It’s also very interesting that the study just held a stick in front of the child’s nose, but never measured actual consumption of vegetables. We can imagine that when a child smiles at a certain odor and doesn’t cry or show disgust, that yes, potentially the child might eat it – but potentially they might not. It’s not because we can accept a smell, or feel more familiar with it, that we, as humans driven by pleasure and by calories, will say: I can accept the smell, therefore I will eat it.
So I think this is a very tricky position to be in – to believe that if we control the mother, the womb, and the exposure, we can also control the outcome. And the outcome is the child’s eating behavior. This is literally a boundary being crossed twice.
We cross the mother’s agency first. And then we’re not even swallowing a capsule – we’re swallowing the promise that if we ignore our needs and just take whatever is presented on our plate, something good will happen for our kids. We do not have to swallow everything presented on our plate just to please the promise that we won’t end up with a picky eater.
Because once you’re in that vibe of I should control my eating, you’re setting yourself up for disordered eating. You’re setting yourself up for controlling your child’s eating behavior – which is itself a risk factor for your child developing a disordered relationship with food. This carries a big cost on mental health. And which makes the intervention itself almost useless.
‘We are not prevention hubs, we are humans’
I feel like there’s not only stigma on picky eating and selective eating – there’s also a quiet dehumanization of pregnant women as prevention hubs. We are not prevention hubs. We are humans. I am allowed to say no to a capsule. I am allowed to make my own food choices in an aligned and informed way.
No single health argument can override a mother’s lived experience of being pregnant. After all, what actually shapes your child’s relationship with food isn’t kale at 32 weeks. That’s one tiny piece of a very large puzzle. In the world of science, it may be a meaningful piece. But in the context of your home and your daily life, let’s focus on what matters: being calm, letting your child eat, being a leader in your own food choices, providing safe foods, accommodating your child’s needs – and truly seeing the broader picture.
Please ask yourself: what’s actually at stake here? If the answer involves your (child’s) mental health know that this is part of health. A health strategy that excludes the impact on mental health is not a health strategy. And honestly, health itself is less in our control than the current narrative makes us believe. But well-being? That we can tune into. Am I stressed right now? What would feel good to eat tonight? What makes me happy at the table? How can I genuinely take care of myself?
