DENVER — Family members of Cooper Tedesco, 2, announced today they were concerned with his refusal to enjoy the main food groups of any good Italian: spaghetti, spaghetti, and spaghetti.

“I really don’t get it,” Cooper’s father, Mike, told reporters at a press conference. “By my calculations, Cooper’s only eaten half his body weight in spaghetti for the week. He’s way behind schedule.”

For several generations, all Tedesco children have been placed on a strict regimen of spaghetti, whether they liked it or not. An archived home movie of Dad as a child in the 1950s shows his aunt asking him if he wanted another serving of spaghetti at a dinner gathering. The young Tedesco shook his head no, and the aunt promptly dumped a ladle full of spaghetti on his plate.

“With spaghetti, all Tedesco kids like it at first,” Dad said. “But after the first few hundred servings, that first phase of enjoyment gives way to denial, then anger. It looks like Cooper is in that stage now.

“Slowly, after a thousand servings or so, we all learn to accept spaghetti,” Dad added. “Then, finally, we enter the final phase of forgiveness.

“Anyone for seconds?”