Generations of parents have been searching for ways to get their children to eat vegetables. Some popular recent approaches include “sneaky tricks” such as hiding vegetables or disguising them as something more palatable. However, a new Stanford University study has found that simply teaching children about healthy eating is all it takes.
Honesty, or deception
In popular culture, the assumption is that if children had their way, vegetables or any other healthy food wouldn’t exist. A recent trend to emerge is the idea of “stealth” vegetables—healthy foods hiding in such confections as brownies and ice cream—or gourmet creations for kids that most adults would salivate over such as backed kale chips or macaroni and cheese with grated carrots and squash.
However, tricking children into eating vegetables may be underestimating their intelligence. Honesty may be the best strategy, according to a new study published in Psychological Science.
Children are curious
Stanford psychologists Sarah Gripshover and Ellen Markham have found that young children have no problem understanding the concept of good nutrition. In their study, teaching four-and five-year olds why their bodies need a variety of healthy food motivated them to voluntarily eat more vegetables.
According to the researchers, adults often assume that explanations of complex, abstract concepts are confusing for young children. But they believe children are naturally curious and want to understand how things work.
A conceptual approach
Gripshover and Markman created five storybooks that simplified key concepts about food and nutrition, including: a balanced diet with a variety of foods, how digestion works, and how nutrients keep their bodies healthy and functioning like they should.
Each week a different book was read to preschoolers in two classrooms during snack time for about three months while two other classrooms had snack time as usual. Later the researchers asked the children questions about food, nutrition and physiology to gauge their understanding of the knowledge presented in the books.
Two teaching strategies
Gripshover and Markman found that the children attending the snack time reading sessions ate more than twice the amount of vegetables after hearing the books than before. Vegetable consumption for children in the other classrooms remained the same. The children in the reading sessions also retained their knowledge about the role nutrients play in their bodies.
In another experiment, the researchers compared their teaching strategy to one based on Department of Agriculture materials that emphasize the enjoyment of healthy eating and the adventure of trying new foods. The USDA approach also increased vegetable consumption among the preschoolers, but not nearly as much as the Stanford storybook strategy.
“What sets our materials apart from other approaches is the care we took to explain to children why their body needs different kinds of healthy food, the researchers wrote. “We did not train children to eat more vegetables specifically.”
Stealth vegetables for adults
The conceptual approach appeared to work well for children in the process of forming their perceptions about life. But for adults set in their ways, perhaps hidden vegetables are the way to go. Numerous creative recipes developed to trick children into eating vegetables are actually quite mouth-watering. Consider:
Red Beet Pancakes made with whole wheat flour, pureed beets and Greek yogurt
Black Bean Brownies, more like fudge, with instant coffee and chocolate chips
Hidden Vegetable Meatloaf with pureed mushrooms, carrots and celery
Green beans with bacon, pecans and maple syrup Dijon mustard dressing
Rainbow Veggie Wrap tortilla with hummus and thinly sliced vegetables.
Pumpkin Black Bean Soup with ham and beans
Chantrelle Mushroom and Kale Pizza
Triple Berry Spinach Smoothie, with frozen blueberries, strawberries and raspberries
Source: Stanford News, Metroparent, Redbook