How to get kids to eat more vegetables

To many children, broccoli, beans and their ilk are just nasty. But a few clever strategies can turn that 'yuck' into 'yes.' The picky eating habits of children can drive parents to distraction. Foods that smell funny, or are too hot, too cold, too crunchy or too mushy: all are candidates for rejection.
And when it comes to trying to get kids to eat their vegetables, the task often seems insurmountable. Youngsters naturally prefer tasty foods that are high in calories - a nod to their biology, which is designed to ensure adequate intake while they're growing rapidly. But these days, with kids eating more of these plentiful, palatable foods and exercising less and less, the most obvious rapid growth is in the size of their waistlines.
Numerous agencies, including the American Heart Assn. and the American Dietetic Assn., are calling for changes to our children's diets. They want kids to eat fewer high-fat, high-sugar foods in favor of foods with more vitamins, minerals and fiber - ones, in other words, that supply the most nutritional bang for their calorie buck.
No one would argue that one way to reduce calorie intake is to eat more nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables. But many kids have a food "neophobia" - literally, fear of the new - that reaches a peak between the ages of 2 and 6. And this, again, can partly be blamed on biology.
Avoiding the unfamiliar may be an evolutionarily adaptive mechanism - one that serves to protect us from eating potentially poisonous substances that existed in abundance in the plant-rich environment of our ancestors. Still, studies suggest that with repeated exposure, dislikes can be transformed into desire.
In a report published in the journal Appetite in 2003, for example, researchers at University College London randomly assigned children ages 2 to 6 and their parents to one of three groups for a two-week study. In one group, parents offered their child a daily taste of a vegetable for which the child had indicated a low preference ranking. In a second group, parents received only general nutrition information about how to increase fruits and vegetables in the diet. The third group served as a control - receiving neither dietary recommendations nor literature. The kids who received daily exposure increased their liking and consumption of the food, and increased the ranking of the vegetable in question significantly more than children in the other two groups.
And, a majority of parents in the "exposure" group felt that the intervention could have a lasting effect on their children. In some cases, foods their youngsters previously wouldn't touch had actually become their favorites. One parent commented that her child looked forward to the daily tasting, because it had "made food more fun."
If the concept of repeated vegetable exposure sounds too daunting, a group at Pennsylvania State University in University Park suggest another tactic for parents - more of a vegetable "sneak attack." In a study presented at a scientific meeting last month, the researchers added pur�ed broccoli and cauliflower to pasta sauce, increasing the nutritional value and decreasing the caloric density of the meal. Children fed the doctored dish could not distinguish it from the conventionally prepared item.
The kids, ages 3 to 5, showed no clear preference for one dish over the other and ate consistent amounts of both. As a result, they ate significantly more vegetables - while reducing their calorie intake by nearly 20%.
Of course, "hiding" vegetables from kids won't necessarily help them acquire a taste for them, which is important for lifelong healthy habits. But there are other strategies to try. It's been shown that kids who help take part in planting, harvesting, purchasing and preparing vegetables generally consume more of these foods. It's also known that parents who offer new foods and set good examples with their own dietary habits are also on the right track. Still, a little covert cookery may be a good strategy for adults, too - recent surveys indicate that only 40% of Americans eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables per day, and the newest recommendations are that we consume even more than that.
If sneaking a few vegetables into a pasta sauce, soup, casserole or meat loaf will increase vegetable consumption and decrease calorie intake, the whole family wins.
(LAT)