Why don’t kids eat more veggies?

I have been reading a lot about kids and vegetables with one key question in mind: How do we get kids to enjoy veggies and eat more of them? There is no easy answer to this question. It is a complex problem with biological, social and cultural components.

How do we help Henry to develop a love for vegetables?

First, we’re biologically predisposed to like sweet and salty flavors, but many vegetables are not particularly sweet or salty. Maybe that’s why salty French fries are the number one vegetable for kids. Acquiring a taste for vegetables takes repeated exposure. Babies need to taste a food as many as 15 times before it becomes familiar, but a child over two may need to try a food 90 times before accepting it. Many parents give up after offering a vegetable only a few times, assuming that their child does not like it. In a 2008 study, almost one-third of infants and young children do not regularly eat even one serving of vegetables on a typical day. A 2004 study found that a similar number of children between 7 and 24 months did not eat any vegetables.

Second, social factors such as family routines and peer behaviors influence whether children will eat their vegetables. When children see others eat a food, they are more likely to want to try it. Similarly, parents tend not to offer their child foods that they do not enjoy. If you don’t like green beans, then your child is likely to never taste them. Additionally, it is very difficult to change a child’s eating pattern after the age of 2. If parents establish healthy eating habits for their child at a very young age, it is much easier to continue those trends when the child is older. Food preferences begin very early. A 2002 study found that children tended to like the same foods at age 8 as they did at age 4.

Third, cultural factors are weighted against healthy food choices. School lunches are notorious for their lack of healthy food offerings. Restaurant kid’s menus are filled with chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. Fast food restaurants don’t bother to offer good vegetable choices. When was the last time you saw an appetizing vegetable side dish other than fries with ketchup on your favorite fast food menu? 

Is there any hope for preventing Henry from becoming a future ketchup addict?

And television, possibly our biggest cultural influence, can have detrimental effects on what kids eat. Numerous studies have shown that watching television is strongly associated with obesity and poor eating habits. The combination of junk food advertisements, mindless snacking and time spent as a couch potato does not encourage a healthy lifestyle. When children snack while watching tv, they are most likely to eat sweet and salty junk food not vegetables. By the time dinner is ready, they have already filled up on snacks and have no interest in eating a balanced meal.

What to do about it?

The good news is there are lots of ways to encourage your child to develop healthy food habits and learn to love veggies. I’ve decided to launch a new weekly feature on this blog: Tuesday Tips for Picky Eaters. Every Tuesday I will focus one tip to help prevent your child from becoming a picky eater or turn your picky eater into an adventurous omnivore. We'll test them out on Henry too, but I'm interested to hear how these work at your house too.

This week’s Tuesday Tip for Picky Eaters: Offer veggies first.

Start each family meal with a vegetable appetizer. You might want to think of it as the soup or salad course. As we learned with Henry when we offered him zucchini alongside a piece of toast, the zucchini went untouched. When we put vegetables on his tray first, he happily munched away.

Henry eats more veggies when they are offered to him before the rest of the meal.

Kids are hungrier at the start of a meal so they are more likely to eat what they see first. A 2010 study found that offering preschoolers vegetables as a first course resulted in them eating more vegetables, and doubling the portion size of the veggie appetizer led to the preschoolers eating even more veggies. Plus, eating vegetables and fruits at the start of a meal will helps kids feel fuller with fewer calories.

There are lots of ways to keep it simple such as a vegetable soup, green salad, carrot salad, halved cherry tomatoes in vinaigrette, celery sticks filled with cream cheese, or a raw vegetable platter. If you’ve already planned for two vegetable side dishes with dinner, then just serve one of them before you start the rest of your meal.

Try it out this week and let me know how this works for your kids.