Parents urged to keep faith with eating greens message

PARENTS should not give up on encouraging their children to eat their greens.

This is the advice of researchers at Loughborough University who found that ‘repeated exposure’ to vegetables at snack and mealtimes worked when trying to improve a child’s diet.

The study reviewed a number of previously proposed methods for increasing the number of vegetables children eat.

The most successful, involved making greens a daily part of a youngster’s meal –and continuing to offer the herbivorous additions each day even if they are not accepted at first.

Dr Emma Haycraft, senior lecturer in psychology at Loughborough, explained that ‘repeatedly offering’ the unwanted food over a period of time, which could be weeks or even months depending on the child’s resistance, was the most effective way of encouraging vegetable consumption.

“Don’t give up! But don’t pressure them,” she said. “I was 27 before I started to like olives!”