You can train a toddler to eat veggies, study claims

Conclusion This small study indicates that repeatedly offering young children a new food (artichoke puree) early in life may increase the chance they eat it and this may become harder later on. The study results should be interpreted in light of the study limitations, which include: Potential errors in the measurement of some variables. For example, the age at which the children were first fed solid food and duration of breastfeeding were self-reported and may contain error, especially in the older children. The purees were served cold to the children in the UK and Denmark and warm to the French children and this might have influenced intake. The French group tended to be younger so if warming the puree increased the children’s appetite for it, this could show up as younger children liking it, a bogus result. The study only tested one vegetable, artichoke puree. Different results may have been found with other vegetables. Whilst repeatedly offering children the puree (on five to 10 occasions) helped them eat more, especially in younger pre-school children, it is not clear how long this effect would last, or whether it could potentially reverse later in life. The authors say durable effects were observed at three and six months after the study but it was not clear if the effects would continue after this time. The implications of the study findings are that new vegetables are best introduced to children at a young age. This is consistent with current g...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Pregnancy/child Source Type: news