The best strategy to get your child to eat her vegetables is as simple as just serving them up on the dinner table regularly, says a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior (October). The study published by Elsevier, the well-known Dutch analytics company, found that repeatedly offering a variety of vegetables to children increases acceptance and consumption.
Researchers led by Dr. Astrid A.M. Poelman of the CSIRO Agriculture & Food, Sensory, Flavour and Consumer Science, Australia, surveyed 32 families with children between the age of 4-6 in which low vegetables consumption was reported. Three groups were constituted: first in which children were introduced to one vegetable; the second was served multiple vegetables; and in the third group eating habits were unchanged.
Researchers found that families that regularly served multiple vegetables at meal times recorded an increase in consumption, while no change was observed in families serving a single vegetable. “The study shows the strategy of offering a variety of vegetables to children is more successful in increasing consumption than offering a single vegetable,” says Dr. Poelman.