STUDY: Children likely to eat many more vegetables if they see adults enjoying them
Vegetable consumption is also linked to mental health, particularly strong among older children. A study of 9,000 children found that those with more fruit and vegetables in their diet had better mental wellbeing.
OLIVIA RUDGARD: Adults who have positive facial expressions while eating vegetables may help kids consume more than double the amount they would otherwise, researchers have found. Watching a parent eat and enjoy vegetables has previously been suggested by nutritionists as a tactic to encourage children to eat them too, but this study suggests that the method has a basis in science.
The team, from the College of Health and Life Sciences at Aston University, recruited 111 British children between the ages of four and six years old for the research. They played each of them one of three videos. In two of the videos, the children were shown unfamiliar adults eating raw broccoli with either a positive or a neutral facial expression, while a third video, used as a control, was not food related. They then gave the kids raw broccoli and used a seven-point scale from turning away from it to accepting and eating it.
Their intake of the vegetable was measured by the number of grams of raw broccoli consumed, and the number of “tastes” of the raw broccoli was also examined. They found that children who were shown video clips of adults enjoying eating broccoli had more tastes of the food and also ate, on average, more than twice as much in comparison with those in the control group, eating 11g rather than 5g.
Watching the video of the adults enjoying the food did not affect their likelihood to try an initial taste, the study found. Katie Edwards, a PhD researcher at Aston University, said: “One explanation for the beneficial effect of positive facial expressions whilst eating could be that conveying food enjoyment gives the observer information about the safety and palatability of food”…
Cooking with children and making sure food is served according to a routine can also encourage children to feel more comfortable eating their greens, experts say. As well as providing them with better nutrition and energy, vegetable consumption among children is also linked to mental health, previous research has found, with the link particularly strong among older children.
A study of 9,000 children by the University of East Anglia (UEA), published in September, found that children with more fruit and vegetables in their diet had better mental wellbeing, with those who ate five or more portions each day doing the best… Nutrition had as much or more of an impact on wellbeing as other factors such as witnessing regular arguing or violence at home…
Despite the rising popularity of veganism and vegetarianism, the UK’s overall consumption of fruit and vegetables is going down, a report found last year. Only one in three adults and just over one in 10 adolescents currently achieve the famous five-a-day target, the Food Foundation charity said.
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