Conceptual Framework Helps Children Eat Vegetables Voluntarily

Feeding children vegetables is certainly a task that keeps parents on their toes. But now they can create an interest among children about veggies by introducing an overarching, conceptual framework that encourages them to understand the importance of vegetables in their diet, a recent study says.

In simpler terms, explain to children through illustrations and story format how vegetables work in improving our health.

The study by Stanford psychological scientists found that the conceptual framework helped children of all age groups to understand the positive effects of eating vegetables by choice. "Children have natural curiosity - they want to understand why and how things work," the research team, comprised of Sarah Gripshover and Ellen Markman of Stanford University, said.

For the study, Gripshover and Markman prepared five different storybooks to enhance children's knowledge about nutrition and diet. A set of preschool students were given the books and were told to read them during lunch time for three months. Another set of preschool students that acted as control group were told to eat their meals as usual.

The researchers asked these preschoolers about nutrition and they found that the group who regularly read the nutrition books had better knowledge about the digestion process and nutrients in vegetables that are good for the body than the control group.

What's more, the researchers also found that these children included veggies in their snack time but the amount of food the control group ate remained the same.

The researchers maintain that it is necessary to explain to children about nutrition in vegetables rather than simply telling them that they are "good." "Of course we need to simplify materials for young children, but oversimplification robs children of the opportunity to learn and advance their thinking."

They suggested an analytic method that included terms like metabolism, diet and nutrient to explain the importance of vegetables to the children.

The research team also said that further study is required to know whether the strategy would work outside snack time. However, Gripshover and Markman said they believe that the technique would work in most cases. "In the future, our conceptually-based educational materials could be combined with behaviorally-focused nutrition interventions with the hope of boosting healthy eating more than either technique alone," they said.