Want to get your children to eat their broccoli? SMILE! Kids who watch adults eat with positive facial expressions consume more than DOUBLE the amount of vegetables, study claims
- Psychologists recruited 111 British kids aged 4–6 and played them each a video
- One showed an adult happily eating raw broccoli and another with a neutral face
- The final video was used as a control and had content that was not food related
- Kids shown an adult enthusiastically eating broccoli ate an average of 11 g of it
- However, those shown the control video only ate 5 g of the unpopular vegetable
Good news for parents sick of imploring their child, with increasing desperation, to eat their greens — as experts have a life hack to make dinnertime less exasperating.
They key is to smile, as children may eat twice as many vegetables if they first see adults enjoying eating the same, experts led from Aston University have concluded.
The finding could help kids to develop more of a taste for less popular vegetables like raw broccoli and generally facilitate healthier eating in children.
However, the team's experiment focused mainly on young children who had never tried broccoli before — meaning that it could be too late for established fussy eaters.
Good news for parents sick of imploring their child, with increasing desperation, to eat their greens — as expert have a life hack to make dinnertime less exasperating (stock image)
The research was conducted by psychologist Katie Edwards of Birmingham's Aston University and her colleagues.
'Our findings suggest that observing others enjoy a commonly disliked vegetable can increase children's tastes to, and intake of raw broccoli,' said Ms Edwards.
'Modelling the enjoyment of vegetables could encourage healthier eating in children,' she continued.
In their study, the team recruited 111 British children with ages between 4–6 and played them each one of three videos.
In two of the videos, the children were shown an unfamiliar adult eating raw broccoli with either a positive or a neutral facial expression. The third video, used as a control, was not food related.
Subsequently, the team had parents assess each child's willingness to try raw broccoli — logged using a seven point scale from turning away from it to both swallowing and accepting it — and their intake of the vegetable as measured by the number of grams of broccoli consumed.
'Raw broccoli was used due to its bitter taste and [how] bitterness is innately less preferred. Broccoli is also likely to be unfamiliar to children in its raw form,' the researchers explained in their paper.
The team found that children who were exposed to video clips of adults enjoying eating broccoli ate, on average, more than twice as much of the food in comparison with the kids in the control group — specifically, 11 g (0.4 oz) rather than 5 g (0.2 oz).
The team found that children who were exposed to video clips of adults enjoying eating broccoli ate, on average, more than twice as much of the food in comparison with the kids in the control group — specifically, 11 g (0.4 oz) rather than 5 g (0.2 oz)
'One explanation for the beneficial effect of positive facial expressions whilst eating could be that conveying food enjoyment gives the observer information about the safety and palatability of food,' the researchers wrote.
They continued: 'Raw broccoli was novel for most participants.
'Thus children may have eaten more broccoli after watching adults enjoy eating it, because they believed it was enjoyable to eat.'
Setting an enthusiastic example (pictured) could help fussy eaters develop more of a taste for less popular vegetables like raw broccoli and generally facilitate healthier eating in children
The researchers were surprised to find, however, that seeing adults enjoying raw broccoli did not impact the children's initial willingness to try the vegetable
The researchers were surprised to find, however, that seeing adults enjoying raw broccoli did not impact the children's initial willingness to try the vegetable.
'Further work is needed to determine whether a single exposure [to adults enjoying broccoli] is sufficient and whether these effects are sustained over time,' the researchers concluded.
The full findings of the study were published in the journal Appetite.
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