Yes and no. Children are born with a preference for sweetness. Under the scarce conditions that shaped most of human history, this was extremely useful: sweet foods were often safe, easily digested sources of energy.
Today that “sweet tooth” can become a problem. The same orientation that once guided a child toward ripe fruit now makes many highly processed supermarket foods irresistibly attractive.
Young children also bring relatively little enthusiasm for bitter vegetables. In that sense, they do not arrive as the “good eaters” many modern parents imagine. But that is only half the story.
Children also bring a learning program
Human beings have always had to make use of the foods available in their local environment. Otherwise our species could never have lived successfully in both the vegetable-poor Arctic and the richly varied tropics.
Children therefore possess a counter-program: over time, they learn what their people eat. Depending on the local culture, that may be grilled spiders, potatoes baked in clay — or broccoli.
How does the learning happen? Above all through familiarity and example. Experiments show that young children often come to accept a food they first reject when it is offered repeatedly, without pressure, on a number of later occasions.
This produces an apparent paradox: children do not always eat a food because they already like it. Often they come to like it because they encounter and eat it again and again.
From pressure to patience
An evolutionary perspective does not promise a trick that makes broccoli lovable overnight. It offers a more realistic picture. Caution is normal; social learning takes time; trusted adults and repeated, low-pressure exposure matter.
The child is not failing at eating. The child is doing two ancient jobs at once: avoiding possible danger and learning the food culture of the people around them. Read more about why these programs can feel out of place in a modern environment.