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How to get your kids to eat their vegetables
Incentives are useful everywhere, but sometimes the correct application is counterintuitive. Yesterday's Wall Street Journal offered the following tips from the experts:
1. Try many times -- fifteen or more -- to get your kids to eat their vegetables. Most parents give up too soon.
2. Bribing, punishing, and celebrating when the kid eats the vegetables are all counterproductive.
3. "Use tasty toppings."
4. If the kid doesn't eat the vegetables, grab them from his plate and gobble them up yourself.
5. Eat your own vegetables in great quantity and with great delight.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 22, 2006 at 06:32 AM in Food and Drink | Permalink
Comments
6. Make mushroom like shrimps
Posted by: debbie at Nov 22, 2006 8:00:55 AM
mushrooms ain't vegetables
Posted by: A Tykhyy at Nov 22, 2006 8:08:04 AM
I can personally vouch for "bribing, punishing and celebrating" not working. When I was a kid, my picky-eater reputation was so solidly established that every vegetable turned into a major occasion: "Look, everyone, B.'s eating broccoli!" In the usual teenage way, I found this mortifying---so much so that, when I started actively craving vegetables around age 16-17, I decided to *wait until I got to college*.
Posted by: B. at Nov 22, 2006 8:53:23 AM
We've been following these principles for years with our 4 and 6 year old (essentially this same list has been conventional wisdom among nutritionists for some time now). The good news is these principles seem to work pretty well in encouraging each kid to like some vegetables. But, don't expect this list to somehow convert your kids into miniature grownups. We are always amused to see our kids behave childishly in their vegetable preferences the way the stereotypical American child is about PB&J. One child will eat piles of spinach salad, but first carefully removes every tiny piece of cucumber. Another won't eat the salad but will snack on pounds of frozen vegetables -- and I mean while they are still frozen. Is that even healthy? It's up to Dad to screw up his face like a four-year-old and say, "yuck!."
Posted by: Parke at Nov 22, 2006 9:10:39 AM
This misses the most important step.
Parents: Tell your kids to "eat just one" vegetable. Over time, they will aquire the taste and be more willing to eat a full serving.
Posted by: Macneil at Nov 22, 2006 9:55:23 AM
It is said that some who only drink soybean milk from the childhood would never like cow milk products. So 7) perhaps we can only let the children eat only veges ever since they were born. Then they will never like meats.
However, someone who drink cow milk from the childhood would less tend to reject the soybean milk.Then is it a problem of how much respectively we should allocate between the veges and milk?
Posted by: debbie at Nov 22, 2006 10:19:43 AM
Hell, i still don't like the majority of vegetables i eat. But you cover them in a thick curry or stir fry sauce, and you don't even taste them.
Posted by: dan at Nov 22, 2006 10:36:43 AM
I put a little dash of Lawry's on my 6 and 4-year olds' veggies. I rarely hear a complaint and I rarely throw away their veggies.
Posted by: Phil at Nov 22, 2006 11:52:03 AM
My two-step process for getting my kids to eat their food:
1. Tell them to eat them.
2. If they don't, spank and return to step 2.
Works every time!
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 22, 2006 12:07:37 PM
Er, make that: "return to step 1"
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 22, 2006 12:08:18 PM
Also: who are the experts? #1 is good advice, #s 2, 3, and 5 are sort of wise, #4 is just stupid.
Posted by: bob montgomery at Nov 22, 2006 12:11:07 PM
I'm not sure about children, but if you want to get me to eat my vegetables, the most important thing is not to prepare them in a horribly unappetizing way. Overcooking is the biggest offender.
And if they won't eat their vegetables, it's not the end of the world. The nutrients in animal products are more important for growing children than the ones in vegetables anyway. Better to let them skip the vegetables while they're young than to torment them into hating vegetables their entire lives.
Posted by: Brandon Berg at Nov 22, 2006 12:17:06 PM
What ever happened to "There are starving children in ..." who would love to have your vegetables? Use guilt!
Don't have kids, but my mom's recounting of how we were never fussy eaters involved my father's application of #5 not just to the vegetables but also to everything she made. I don't actually recall my parents ever using the starving kids in China bit... since they were Chinese immigrants it would be too much for their Chinese pride. My dad used guilt in a different way. He always sent the message that enjoying the meals was a way to show appreciation for the effort my mom made on our behalf in preparing them.
Of course, it helps that my mom is the world's best chinese cook.
Posted by: Jim Hu at Nov 22, 2006 12:32:57 PM
This usually works and is more preventative. Limit their intake of foods with a high sugar content or highly processed foods with artificial flavoring. This may curb their appetite for these foods, quick fixes to the palate, and simultaneously make vegetables, which have a great taste by themselves, more appetizing.
Posted by: vjperera at Nov 22, 2006 1:03:46 PM
1. Serve the vegetables first, while you get the rest of the meal ready.
Food looks and tastes better when you are hungry.
2. Put a plate of cut vegetables and a small dish of ranch dressing inffront of kids and they will eat all the vegetables.
3. Don't boil them. Ugh. I grew up thinking I hated vegetables cus my parents boiled the brocolli.
Posted by: Penny at Nov 22, 2006 2:29:22 PM
Let them go hungry. Just don't give them an alternative to veggies in the first place since beggars can't be chosers.
Posted by: TW at Nov 22, 2006 4:40:13 PM
I'll go with the "prepare them properly" argument.
Of course they don't like over-boiled spinach or whatever. But fry it up with garlic and bacon? Delicious.
A lot of things like carrots are better raw than cooked.
And everything tastes OK in a curry.
Posted by: Patrick at Nov 22, 2006 6:05:29 PM
The list misses out an obvious one.
Find other kids who like the vegetable in question. Invite them around./ Serve the vegetable and let your kid watch them eating it with enjoyment.
Posted by: Tracy W at Nov 22, 2006 7:07:51 PM
Eat your own vegetables in great quantity and with great delight.
at least for me, that worked. i'd eat any and every veggie. my grand dad used to eat veggies with a relish that i wanted to do exactly like him..
Patrick: And everything tastes OK in a curry.
right on!! if any of you get a chance to attend a south indian wedding, don't miss the wedding feast. there will be an immense amount of veggies (and an incredible number of dishes). ur missing something if you havent experienced it :-). coming from a non resident indian, all this is obviously biased, but ...
Posted by: jav at Nov 22, 2006 7:16:04 PM
I totally agree with bribing kids to eat their vegetables. Another thing you could do when dinner time comes around is only serve vegetables and lock everything else up. That way, they have no choise than to eat vegetables. Make them think that will be all they get for dinnner and once they have eaten an acceptable amount, give them some other type of food.
Posted by: Thomas at Nov 22, 2006 9:13:21 PM
It's easier if they're the only thing on their plates.
Posted by: TJ at Nov 22, 2006 10:17:52 PM
I like Dan's advice. Curry them up or maybe a fresh vindaloo with a pint of stale lager and those kiddies will munch'em right up!
Posted by: Richard Pointer at Nov 22, 2006 10:36:38 PM
I think point (5) underscores the point that kids aren't going to eat their vegetables unless their parents eat them in the first place. I remember once at dinner, with about a serving left in the bowl, my mom passed the bowl over to my dad and me and said "John, you and David finish up the green beans." My dad then turned to me and said "David, finish up the green beans."
As a kid, I hated broccoli, brussells sprouts, squash, and sweet potatoes among others, but I did fine with peas, raw carrots, green beans, corn (on or off cob), and regular potatoes (this one helped by my mom's refusal to acknowledge them as vegetables).
Honestly, I would say get your kids to pick stuff they like or at least tolerate, don't worry if they don't like some stuff, and make the stuff they do like. And do the opposite of (1), because the kid is supposed to eat vegetables for his own nourishment, not to make you happy.
Try stuff they don't like about once a year to see if their tastes change.
Posted by: David at Nov 22, 2006 11:33:14 PM
Show them a video of Harry Potter enjoying his veggies
Posted by: Emma Eckstein at Nov 23, 2006 1:41:28 PM
If they don't any vegetables go to a chocolate factory and pretned they are chocolate.
Posted by: Ina Lowerdein at Dec 17, 2006 2:26:56 PM
