Tired of serving your kids the carefully prepared vegetables you’ve slaved over, only for them to wince at them, and for you to eat them once they’ve scurried away? Thinking of just throwing in the towel and only feeding them what they like? Well, don’t give up just yet! Because a recent study suggests that consistently offering your children a variety of veggies at mealtimes will result in their eating them. The study was published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior by the research platform, Elsevier.

Study summary

Researchers enrolled 32 families with children aged four to six, who reported a low vegetable intake. Before taking part, the parents filled out a survey and attended an information meeting on the study.

The researchers then split the families into three groups. In one group, the children were introduced to one vegetable during the study period, and in another, the children were served several vegetables. The diets of the children in the remaining group stayed the same.

Researchers used several methods to get the data for their study. One involved inviting the children to eat dinner at the research facility two times during the study. At the facility, the children were allowed to eat as much broccoli, cauliflower and green beans as they wanted.

Another strategy they used was gathering information from food diaries tracking changes to the kids’ vegetable consumption at home, school or childcare facilities. Lastly, the researchers collected parents’ reports on their children’s vegetable intake.

The parents led the vegetable serving sessions, which took place at home.

The families in the one-vegetable group served broccoli, whereas those in the multiple-vegetables one served broccoli, as well as peas and courgettes.

The parents were given vouchers to buy the vegetables along with instructions on how to prepare them. They were also given tips on how to offer them to their children. The kids were served a small piece of veg three times a week for five weeks and received a sticker as a reward for each time they tried a vegetable.

Results

At the beginning of the study, there were no significant differences in vegetable consumption between the three groups. The researchers also didn’t find an increase in the kids’ vegetable intake when they ate dinner at the research facility without their parents. They attributed to the kids being in an unfamiliar setting.

Researchers found that in the multiple-vegetables group, vegetable intake doubled from 0.6 servings to 1.2, but they did not see any changes in consumption in the other two groups.

Nonetheless, vegetable acceptance increased for the kids in both the single and multiple vegetable groups during the study period. This trend also continued to be seen with the multi-veg group in the three-month follow-up period.

After the study, the parents also said that they found offering the vegetables to be “very easy” or “quite easy”, and the majority used the instructions given to them in the study.

Researcher’s comments

The study’s lead author, Astrid Poelman, PhD, CSIRO Agriculture & Food, Sensory, Flavour and Consumer Science, North Ryde, Australia, says that the study shows parents an “effective strategy” to get their children to eat more vegetables and address children’s low vegetable intake – an issue she says is common in Australia, where the took place.

Although the kids in the multiple-vegetables group ended up consuming more vegetables than before, they still didn’t eat enough to meet dietary guidelines. Despite that, Dr Poelman maintained that offering kids a variety of vegetables instead of just one is a better way to get them to eat more veg.

Writer’s take

Hang in there, parents! Dinnertime veggie-wars are tough, but science says it’s worth it.

Written By: Tesneem Ayoub
Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190909123713.html 

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