Are Messy Eaters Smarter? If So, These 12 Food-Covered Cuties Have Bright Futures
At feeding time, does your baby eat the food, wear it, or make you feel like you're trapped in the audience at a Gallagher show? If every meal must be followed by a bath, there is a literal bright side. According to a new University of Iowa study of approximately 70 children around age 16 months, messy eaters may be Mensa fodder. Researchers observed that babies who are allowed to play with their food learn the names of what they're eating more quickly. So those spaghetti stains on your wall may be a sign that you have a smarty-pants on your hands.
To put the theory to the test, we asked 11 parents of a dozen adorable babies to share their tales of mealtime messes, and the brilliant futures they envision for their progeny. Check back in 20 years or so to see if they'll need to eat their words.
1/11Molly, 11 months, Brooklyn, N.Y.
That’s homemade cranberry sauce all over her face. It was her first Thanksgiving and she went nuts. She was even dipping her turkey in it! I just combined fresh cranberries with water, orange juice and sugar, and boiled them all together. I worried she would think it was too tart but she loved it. Is most of her food homemade? Yes. She’s never had baby food. She eats what we eat, even spicy foods, and she feeds herself everything but soup. What meal makes the most mess? Spaghetti and sauce. Oh my god, she gets it in her ears, up her nose, in her hair, even in her diaper! I’ve found spaghetti between her butt cheeks. Based on her eating habits, what do you think she’ll grow up to be? First Jewish female president!
2/11James, 8 months, Lindenhurst, Illinois
He’s eating sweet potatoes—his very first meal of solids. I roasted them with olive oil and salt and pepper at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. Just so you know, he’s not crying because he doesn’t like the food. He’s crying because it’s all gone! Is he always a messy eater? Definitely. If he drops anything or spits anything out, he wants to finger paint. And with Cheerios, he’ll pick up a handful with one hand and use his other hand to shove the first fist into his mouth and drop lots of them in the process, which the dog then eats. What do you think he’ll be when he grows up? I’m going to go with professional finger painter because I hear that’s very lucrative.
3/11Ava, 8 months, New Orleans
Those are sweet potatoes. It was the first time she had ever eaten a vegetable. I bake them in the oven and purée them and add a little water, and then pour the mixture into ice cube trays so I have little servings. Is she a big eater? She always enjoys the first few spoonfuls, but when she’s had enough she starts to gag. You’d never know she was about to gag in that picture! She also recently learned that she can drop and/or throw her spoon on the floor. She just laughs as I clean sweet potato off the wall. Even when the spoon does go in her mouth, somehow the food doesn’t. What kind of future do you think she has ahead of her? Music mogul because she’s a master on the xylophone at daycare and she likes to suck on a little baton.
4/11Isabella, 12 months, NYC
She’s eating spinach goat cheese ravioli from the local Italian gourmet store. Sophisticated taste! She’s even had sashimi and liked it. So she’s not a picky eater? She’s so curious that her curiosity usually trumps any fear of new tastes. Even when she doesn’t like something, she can come around. The first time I made her carrots she immediately spit them out and wiped them all over her face, which is a kind of funny thing to do when you don’t like something. But now she loves them. I like that she has a sense of adventure and I hope that translates into other things in her life. Based on that, what do you think she’ll be when she grows up? I’m thinking some sort of freedom fighter or activist.
5/11Freya, 21 months, Nashville
She’s eating kale. Yes, kale! But with apple and cinnamon in it. When she was eating purees, I would usually just chuck a whole bunch of stuff in the blender. Except for meat. Meat has always grossed her out, even when I blend in it with other stuff. She’s fine with tofu, though. Is there an upside to her being a messy eater? I do like that she experiences the world kinesthetically and I think she’s more adventurous because she’s messy. She’s also very independent and confident. What do you think she’ll do for a career? Freya: Are you going to be a dancer? Gymnast? Soccer player? She’s nodding her head at all of them. I’ll shoot high: I think she’s going to be some kind of athlete or maybe an astronaut. Honestly, right now I don’t have any ambitions for her besides making it to bedtime without any freakouts.
6/11Zane, 11 months, Seattle
That’s peas and macaroni. Right now he’s way more interested in playing with his food than eating it. At some point during every meal, his fist will go into his bowl and then he’ll rub the food all over his head. Or worse, he’ll rub his eyes and then the food gets in there and he starts to cry. That's why we give him a lot of those Happy Baby organic food packets. You don't need a spoon and there's rarely much of a mess. Based on his eating, what do you think he’ll be when he grows up? An aeronautical engineer. He’s always trying to figure out what will happen when he sends his food flying across the room. His career will definitely have something to do with the physics of flight.
7/11Amelie and Suri, 12 months, NYC
My girls are eating puréed sweet potatoes and Earth’s Best multigrain cereal. In India we traditionally don’t eat with silverware. We just have spoons to ladle the food onto our plates. So I’m used to my family members eating with their hands. But feeding twins can be a struggle. We tried giving them spoons in their bowls, but it made such a mess on their high chairs and on the floor! You also have an older daughter. Are you doing anything differently when feeding the twins? Yes, we’re determined not to change our spice levels the way we did with our older child. Ninety-five percent of the time, the twins eat the same spice we do. One time we had a Dhansak curry that was so spicy they were howling. Even I thought it was hot! But most of the time they’re okay. What do you think they’ll do when they grow up? My dad said Amelie has prettier eyes so she’ll be Miss America and Suri, who’s very outgoing, will be the emcee. But I don’t like the idea of my daughters being beauty queens, so I’m going to say Suri for president and Amelie for vice president.
8/11Zachary, 11 months, NYC
His mouth is covered in Stonyfield Organic YoBaby plain unsweetened yogurt, but I do make a lot of his foods myself. He’s typically a messy eater: He smears food in his hair and he mashes it with his hands and sometimes throws it. We don’t do a lot of purées. He eats little bits of what we eat—steak, chicken, solid vegetables—and he just mashes them with his gums. Does he have any favorites? He seems to love old-world foods. We joke that maybe he’s his great-grandfather incarnate because he eats like he’s in a shtetl. He loves meatballs and brisket. Once I made him chicken paprikash with spaetzle and he was so happy. He was inhaling it, slurping down the noodles, and slicking down his hair with the gravy. What do you think his future holds? I wish for him to do whatever makes him happy in life, but based on his eating style, I could image him in a career that gives him a lot of independence and autonomy.
9/11Magnolia, 6 months, Summit, N.J.
She’s eating some fancy packaged organic brand of sweet potatoes. When she started solids a few weeks ago, it didn’t go well. She had terrible stomach pains so we stopped. But these days she eats whole packs of sweet potatoes. She even licks the lid! Does she make a mess? There are days when she’ll have it all through her hair. She also has this weird way of eating a whole apple: She’ll walk around with it all day, slowly biting off little pieces, and she squirrels away the skin in her cheeks. Eventually she’ll spit all the skin onto the floor in a little ball. What do you think the future has in store for her? I think she and her 20-month-old sister, Sadie, will work for National Geographic. Magnolia will be the photographer and Sadie will be the journal keeper.
10/11Mick, 13 months, Los Angeles
He’s eating something really controversial: a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! I did wait until he turned 1 to introduce nuts. He self-feeds remarkably well—he picked that up at daycare, I take no credit. But he is fond of running his hands through his hair while he eats so there are often post-meal baths. Does he have any favorite foods? Bananas. His first word was banana! He makes an angry sour face if you try to give him any fruit that isn’t a banana. What do you think he’ll do in life? Based on his eating, I’d say engineer. As messy as he is, he’s actually very careful with the way he handles his food.
11/11Luca, 7 months, NYC
He’s eating fresh avocado. It’s his favorite. Since we have two kids, I’ll just give him a bowl of something mashed and let him keep himself occupied. Sometimes he’ll smear the avocado all over his face and in his long curly hair. Those are bath-worthy experiences. And when we give him teething biscuits they’ll disappear and we think he ate them but then we find them stuck to the butt of his pants. Does he always eat by himself? No, usually we spoon-feed him or give him those Happy Baby packets. My six-year-old has no patience for the mess. He doesn’t understand why his little brother doesn’t know how to feed himself yet. What do you think the future has in store for your baby? He likes to rub his food all over his little tray with his hands so I’m thinking he’s an artist.
