How to get your child to eat more vegetables

Trying to get some children to eat vegetables is a battle many parents surrender to, but in many ways that is like giving up on their education because, as part of a balanced diet, vegetables help lay the foundation for a healthy body and mind.

Food preferences are mostly learned over time, however many parents give up serving vegetables to their children when they repeatedly refuse to eat them. With so many other pressing parental demands it is hard to blame them, however according to a study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, offering children a variety of vegetables each day will eventually increase acceptance and consumption.

Why should parents keep up the fight?

If you are a parent with a vegetable adverse child, you should know the battle is worth a fight. Vegetables are extremely high in essential nutrients including vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, fibre and water. As for digestion, vegetables are instrumental in maintaining a healthy gut, providing fuel for the trillions of good bacteria which are so important for good physical and mental health. As an insurance for later in life vegetables will also help to protect your child against many diseases including heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some cancers.
Vegetables will also give your child energy and equally important, when your child is eating vegetables, he or she is not eating junk food. Food which we know is strongly linked to all the diseases mentioned above.

How the study was conducted
The study recruited 32 families with children between the ages of four and six where low consumption of vegetables was reported. The families were divided into three groups. In group, children were introduced to a single vegetable. In group two, children received multiple vegetables and in group three eating habits were unchanged.

Study data were collected at the research facility during which children could eat as much of the broccoli, cauliflower and green beans as they wished. And at home, childcare and school where changes to vegetable consumption was recorded in food diaries and parents reporting.

Strategies of offering vegetables were parent led and home based. Families introducing one vegetable served broccoli and families trying multiple vegetables served broccoli, zucchini and peas. Parents were provided with a voucher to purchase the vegetables and given instructions on portion size and cooking instructions along with tips on how to offer the vegetables. Children were served a small piece of vegetable three times a week for five weeks. A sticker was given as a reward to children trying a vegetable.

There was no difference between groups at the start of the study for any of the methods measured. The dinner meal, during which the children ate without parents present, did not increase consumption perhaps due to an unfamiliar setting. Vegetable acceptance increased for both the single and multiple vegetable groups during the intervention. Families that offered multiple vegetables recorded an increase in consumption from 0.6 to 1.2 servings, while no change in consumption was observed in families serving a single vegetable or families that did not change their eating habits. Increased acceptance for multiple vegetables was noted during the five weeks of the study and sustained at three-month follow up. Following the study parents reported that offering the vegetables was very easy or quite easy with the majority following the instructions provided by the study.

How many serves of veg should children eat

The Australian Dietary Guidelines say that children aged: