Table 2.

Parent (n 12) presentations of fussy eating to the Child Health Line, in Queensland, Australia, over a 4-week period in 2009, by infant and toddler group

Theme	Quote
Infant group (≤12-months, n 6)
2a. Refusal of solids/textured foods	‘Oh he’s very hit and miss. Like sometimes he’ll have hardly a few spoons then he’ll start whingeing.’ (Parent 6; 9-month-old child)
	‘He’s just, he’s very much on milk, not having any solids at all.’ (Parent 7; 12-month-old child)
	‘ ... he doesn’t like anything that’s lumpy, or he’ll just hold it in his mouth and just vomit.’ (Parent 9; 10-month-old child)
	‘But I mean she’s not eating solid foods. She’s having trouble eating solid foods. Like she chokes on all hard foods.’ (Parent 10; 12-month-old child)
Toddler group (13–48-months, n 6)
2b. Quantity of foods	‘He’s just one of those kids that won’t even try it.’ (Parent 2; 48-month-old child)
	‘Um, he just won’t try anything, he just won’t touch anything …’ (Parent 1; 30-month-old child)
	‘I have a 22-month-old daughter and she won’t eat.’ (Parent 8; 22-month-old child)
2c. Variety	‘Now he’s pretty much doesn’t eat anything and he has his bottles and he’ll ask for biccies [sic] but he just won’t have anything else.’ (Parent 1; 30-month-old child)
	‘He’s been a tiny eater, um, and when he does eat, it’s really bad, he won’t eat fruit, he won’t eat vegetables, he won’t eat potatoes, he won’t eat meat. He’s basically, his diet is generally all bread.’ (Parent 4; 24-month-old child)
	‘I’ll cut up a little square piece of bread with his dinner and that too and he won’t eat his food, normally he does and he’ll probably eat that little bit of bread but he’s eating more bread than he is anything else.’ (Parent 5; 12-month-old child)
	‘I mean she’ll eat, she’ll eat steak. That’s the only thing she’ll eat. She won’t touch vegetables at all.’ (Parent 8; 22-month-old child)
2d. Refusal of solids/textured foods	‘And she usually has a bottle and we kind of make her some breakfast. Sometimes she’ll eat her breakfast but [it’s] usually a yoghurt. She won’t ever have fruit or anything like that or cereal or anything. And then we will try and give her a snack but she’ll usually only have a biscuit or a vegemite sandwich or something like that if we’re lucky. Usually, mainly it’s just bottles and you know each time around twelve thirty she’ll sit down for lunch but she won’t, she won’t eat it. And then she’ll have a nap and then about five, five thirty we’ll try and give her dinner and dinner’s the worst of the lot.’ (Parent 8; 22-month-old child)