Further notes on getting your kids to eat their veggies
The keys are your shopping list and your lifestyle
As a follow-up to our recent post on kids and vegetables, here are a couple of additional takes on the subject from various authorities.
According to several studies presented at the recent annual Obesity Society meeting, it’s really just this simple and this obvious: The more often that you offer your kids fruits and veggies, with meals and as snacks, the more often they will eat more fruits and veggies.
Not all fruits or veggies, admittedly, but the fact is that kids aged 6 to 12 tend to like the same vegetables as the population at large.
A recent study of food choices made by that age group found that their favorite vegetables were, in order, corn, green beans, carrots, peas and mixed veggies. It stands to reason that if you offer them those particular options, you’ll stand a much better chance of getting veggies into them than if you challenge them with the likes of eggplants or artichokes or turnips.
As for kids’ five favorite fruits, the winners are apples, bananas, grapes, strawberries and oranges; how watermelon missed making the cut is beyond comprehension.
But the single most important and effective measure a parent can take to influence his or her children’s food choices is to simply set a good example. We know what happens when they don’t: Studies of overweight kids aged 4 to 9 found that they (a) ate much less fruit and vegetables than they should, and (b) not coincidentally, for the most part ate whatever their parents ate.
Over a typical three-day stretch, this meant as many servings of snack foods — six — as of fruits and vegetables combined.
To paraphrase an old saw, “The double bacon cheeseburger with onion rings doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News)
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- Kids and vegetables: Can these traditional mortal enemies be brought together?
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Love the post, having toddlers its always a challenge to open their taste buds to new and sometimes strange tastes. Your conclusion seems to follow the same path that the freakonomics writer advocate “Being not doing”. they found startling correlations between parents indirect action or “who they were” more influential on their children, then direct action “what they did”.
If parents dont like freuits and veggies then their children have a lower liklelyhood of liking veggies either.
Kids no doubt learn by example, and parents need to set it from the very beginning! I know when I was a kid, I wanted nothing to do with brussel sprouts, eggplant or zucchini, but put a plate of carrots or corn in front of me, and I went to town.
Incorporating fruits and veggies to EVERYONES meals will not only benefit your children, but your family as a whole.