It s probably one of the most frustrating aspects of child rearing getting youngsters to eat their veggies. Coercion, rewards, there doesn t seem to be any universally accepted way to accomplish the goal. A new study, to be published this fall, and reviewed in the New York Times, suggests that the best method may be to do nothing overt. In a nutshell, the advice is to present new foods without marketing them to kids as being healthy or making them grow up strong or even make their hair curl.
In the new study, Drs. Michal Maimaran from Northwestern University and Ayelet Fishbach from the University of Chicago told stories to 4 and 5 year-old children. The story featured a little girl named Tara, who ate some Wheat Thins and then went out to play. There were three groups of children, each of which was told a different version of the Tara story, and then each child was allowed to snack from a bowl of Wheat Thins.
One group heard that Tara felt strong and healthy after eating the crackers. Another group was told that Tara thought the crackers were yummy, and she was happy. The third group heard the story, learned that Tara ate the Wheat Thins, but didn t hear any description of them.
When the kids were allowed to snack on Wheat Thins, the first group, told that they were healthy, ate about three crackers. The second group who were told the Wheat Thins were yummy ate about 7 crackers. And the last group who got no additional information about them, ate 9.
What was the rationale for these results? One possible explanation was that a marketing message that makes several claims (yummy and strong and healthy) doesn t do as well as a simple message; the idea is that too many claims devalue each one.
ACSH s Dr. Ruth Kava found these results intriguing. She commented These results fit with advice from a number of pediatric experts who maintain that it is the job of parents to provide healthy choices, and then to allow children to make their selections. Of course, this was just a small study with one food future research will have to establish if this principle holds for other types of foods.