i have ton of food but they wont eat i keep going from 20 - 10 pop!! always makes me rage quit. im starting to think the 10th speed is the issue... :/ can never get past the beginning because of massed starvation.

I have played many times through the first 100 or so pop and never had such a problem (I regularly use max speed), if it's right at the beginning (as it seems to be if you're losing your first 20 people) then it sounds like there's some specific issue. If you're doing this on many different maps then it's unlikely to be the terrain issues that other people have mentioned. Can you post a screenshot of your settlement at the time they aren't eating? I assume at this point it's just a few buildings, so would probably fit into a screen or two?

If he's only begun playing/learning the game, playing at 10x speed probably isn't helping, though. Using a lower speed most of the time is much better for observing how citizens behave as they go about their lives, and thereby identifying possible stumbling blocks in his town setup.

long ago... but as i randomly come back to try the game. i would have thousands of FOODIES and they werent eating.. so i moved on to forest village. havent goten that issue there. so not sure what was wrong. maybe high workload.