Vegetables and children need not be such a tricky combination! Parents don’t despair, children really do like them! It is a case of making sure they are introduced to them at an early enough age. Research led by Professor Hetherington at the Institute of Psychological Sciences at the University of Leeds demonstrated that even the fussiest of toddlers will eat their greens if it is offered to them before the age of two, and more than five to ten times. The study, funded by the EU sought to understand what it is about preferences in eating that influence children’s acceptance of foods. Even the picky eaters ate a bit more of the vegetable when it was offered to them.
In the study reported in Plos One, the research group gave 332 children, aged between 38 months and four years, in three European countries (UK, Denmark and France), servings of artichoke puree. The amount was over 100 g per serving. They chose the globe artichoke because parents were least likely to cook it. Three versions of puree were offered – basic, sweetened with sugar, or with added energy where vegetable oil was incorporated, and the amount of each was monitored before and after each offering.
The results also showed that one in five pretoddlers ate all that was offered on their plates – the ‘plate-clearers’ and 40% even learned to like their artichoke. Masking or disguising the flavour made little difference to uptake too – the children still ate the puree. It seems sweetening the artichoke has little impact on eating more puree. Those who didn’t eat the artichoke – the ‘non-eaters’ numbered 16% of the group and they ate less than 10g even when it was offered over 5 times. The remainder didn’t conform to any particular grouping.
Professor Hetherington is quoted as saying “If you want to encourage your children to eat vegetables, make sure you start early and often. Even if your child is fussy or does not like veggies, our study shows that 5-10 exposures will do the trick.”
It seems that after 2 years of age, children are less likely to try new foods and even abandon eating the tried and trusted foodstuffs.
The NHS recommends weaning children on to solid foods at six months of age.
Caton, S.J., Blundell, P., Ahern, S.M., Nekitsing, C., Olsen, A., et al. (2014) Learning to Eat Vegetables in Early Life: The Role of Timing, Age and Individual Eating Traits. PLoS ONE 9(5): e97609. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0097609.
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