Getting Your Kids To Eat More Vegetables

Never in our country’s history was it more important to teach our children, who are now suffering epidemic rates of obesity, to eat fruits and vegetables every day.

But what if your kids think broccoli, bananas, beans, and other healthy fare are, well, “yucch”?

Turn “YUCCH” Into “Like”

You can actually turn “yucch” into “like,” discovered researchers at University College London.* They randomly assigned kids ages two to six and their parents into one of three groups.

In the first group, parents offered their child every day for two weeks a taste of a vegetable that the child had previously rated as “low” on the “like” scale.

In the second group, the parents received just general information about how important vegetables are for kids.

The third group (the control) group received no guidance at all.

After two weeks, the kids who were exposed daily to the vegetable actually increased their consumption of the food. They also increased their ranking of the vegetable, significantly. That didn’t happen in the other two groups.

In fact, among some of the daily veggie eaters, reported the scientists, the previously “untouchable” veggie had actually become a favorite food. And some parents noted that their children had grown to enjoy the daily tastings because they had “made food more fun.”

Yes, that old saying, “Try it, you’ll like it,” has a whole lot of truth!

* Appetite, 2003; 40:155.

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