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How To Get Kids Eat More Fruits And Vegetables?
 

For the past 30 years, obesity rate has been increased twofold in children and fourfold in adolescents. Overweight or obese children are at a higher risk of getting a number of medical conditions, including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, early heart disease, diabetes, bone problems and skin conditions like heat rash, fungal infections, and acne.

People become overweight or obese as a result of caloric imbalance: the amount of calories expended far exceed the amount of calories consumed. Things like genetic factors, lack of physical activity, unhealthy eating patterns, or a combination of these factors can all cause children to become overweight and obese. To prevent from becoming overweight and obese, children should adopt healthy lifestyle habits that include healthy eating and physical activity. In fact, these habits can also reduce the risk of getting related diseases mentioned above.

Naturally, people will link healthy diet to consuming more fruits and vegetables. Many parents are aware of the benefits, but convincing their kids to eat can be very challenging. Tips and tricks have been actively searched by parents in order to find a feasible way to get their kids to eat more fruits and vegetables. Tips suggested by experts include keeping cut fruits and vegetables on the table at all times, adding bananas or berries to pancakes, providing dried fruits instead of candy, or explaining to their kids that eating vegetables can make them big and strong like some familiar figures like Michael Jordan that they adore.

In a recent paper published online August 18, 2015 in the ‘Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’, researchers from the Utah State University in Logan suggested that kids might eat more fruits and vegetables if they are offered cash. According to them, cash prizes might help convince kids to overcome their fear of trying new things.

2,292 students were involved in an experiment that was conducted in 6 Utah elementary schools. 882 students were offered prizes for eating more fruits and vegetables, 640 children were praised by teachers for doing this, and a third group of 770 kids did not get any recognition at all based on their food choices.

Students’ lunch trays were photographed before and after meals for 3 days at the start of the study so as to assess what they were given to eat and how much they actually consumed. After that, all students were provided with the same fruits and vegetables. Once again, the researchers took pictures before and after the meals to see how much the students ate. Over the next 16 days, rewards or praise were added to the children in the respective groups.

Comparing to students who did not get any incentives, students who got prizes increased their fruit and vegetable consumption by 0.32 cups, while kids who received praise consumed 0.21 cups more. The kids self-reported their fruit and vegetables consumption over about 3 months and their progress were tracked by teachers on wall charts in the classroom, while prizes or praise were continued to offer to students in those study groups. Then the rewards stopped. 6 months later, students in the prize group were still found to eat significantly more fruits and vegetables than the others.

As usual, the study did have some limitations. First of all, the delay between fruit and vegetable consumption and the delivery of any reward might have reduced the effectiveness of the incentives. Meanwhile, the students might exaggerate how much they ate when they reported their own eating habits.

However, the new findings did show that rewards could be used to encourage children to repeatedly try fruits and vegetables. There is also some evidence to suggest that repeatedly tasting novel foods might increase their acceptability. Problem is that kids do not eat every meal at school. Hence, some sorts of strategies are still required to manage healthy eating outside school cafeterias and when the rewards stop.

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