Parents seek ways to make kids eat vegetables

Excerpts courtesy of LA Times

Everyone hopes that their kids will eat their fruits and vegetables so they'll grow into big, strong adults who will eat the nine daily servings recommended by the U.S. government. But everyone also knows kids rarely put "broccoli" at the top of a list of favorite foods.

So an increasing number of parents are loading the foods their kids will eat with produce they think they should be getting. And food makers are lending a hand, offering a growing array of processed foods that sneak vegetables and fruits into chips, juice and nuggets.

But some nutritionists and public health experts wonder if parents these days are relying too much on the sneak attack. They doubt if kids will ever develop a taste for vegetables in all their leafy glory if they are hidden in smoothies and macaroni and cheese. Some say this well-intentioned sneaking could produce kids less likely -- not more -- to eat greens.

"Children should learn to make healthy choices," says Pat Crawford, co-director of the Center for Weight and Health at UC Berkeley. "It really comes down to whether we are feeding our children for nutrients, or for the potential development of healthy patterns that are lifelong."

Many mothers say they were turned on to hiding vegetables in their kids' foods by bestselling cookbooks such as Jessica Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious" and Missy Chase Lapine's "The Sneaky Chef." Both offer kid-friendly recipes with hidden vegetable and fruit purées in such items as pizza and pasta. Lapine advocates mixing jars of vegetable baby food into soups and sauces if parents don't have time to cook and mash produce themselves.

A mother of a picky eater with multiple food allergies, Lapine said hiding foods was a last resort for her, but it "should have been the first and predominant method" all along. She still believes in putting vegetables on the plate, she just wants to take pressure off guilt-ridden parents. "The people who tell me 'You shouldn't be doing this' have never reasoned with a 2-year-old," she says. "We don't have the time and luxury to wait until they get on board."

Some of the homemade recipes in the books are not all that healthy altogether. Rochester, N.Y., mom Nicole Lehner, a fan of Seinfeld's book, said even she was shocked at one recipe that called for a cup of powdered sugar in a chocolate avocado pudding. "If you are going to give your kid that much sugar to get the avocado in, aren't you negating the [healthy] effect?"

Children develop tastes largely on the food most available to them, says Dr. Jennifer Orlet Fisher, assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. "These foods need to be in the home and not just in the home occasionally, but on a regular basis."

"We do know that repeated exposure to . . . foods does lead them -- when they are a bit older -- to accept them and like them, even if they don't eat them initially," says study lead author Leann Birch, professor of human development at Pennsylvania State University, who has researched nutrition and behavior in children for more than 30 years.

Indeed, in her landmark 1982 study, "I Don't Like It, I've Never Tried It," published in the journal Appetite, it took 14 preschool children as many as 10 tastes over a period of weeks before they embraced a new food -- in this case, unfamiliar cheeses or fruits. The foods the kids tasted most often were the ones they most preferred.

Yet, Birch says, most parents give up on introducing a vegetable long before they've offered it to a kid 10 times. If they would only persist in getting their tots to taste a few vegetables a couple of times a week, Birch says -- even if their picky eater ends up just licking them or spitting them out -- it would help them develop a greater affinity for the stuff.

But let's face it: some kids are very picky eaters. Thus, Birch says, it might make sense to combine two approaches: sneak vegetables in while still putting them front-and-center on a child's plate.

If sneaking vegetables into meals is counterproductive, then what's a kosher way to get your kids to eat them willingly? Here are some pointers from veteran food behavior researcher Leann Birch of Pennsylvania State University.

* Be persistent. Birch's studies have found that kids need repeated exposures to food to develop a taste for them -- in one landmark experiment she conducted with preschoolers, it took at least 10 exposures over a period of several weeks. Don't give up.

* Set a good example by eating the vegetable yourself. "You need to let them see you eating it and liking it," Birch says.

* Be matter-of-fact. Many parents unwittingly short-circuit their efforts, appearing shocked when kids eat the vegetables on their plate and making comments such as, "That's amazing! I can't believe you ate that." This makes kids feel like they did something weird.

* Don't punish kids for not finishing the vegetables on their plate. It simply reinforces a negative association with vegetables.

* Don't offer rewards such as ice cream or television for finishing vegetables -- it makes kids believe that vegetables are something that must be endured, not enjoyed.

Bonnie - I think this is a very informative piece and one that reaffirms much of my approach over the years. There is a happy medium for introducing healthy foods that we can find for our children. While I agree with most of the aforementioned tips, I most strongly suggest adhering to persistence. Reintroducing foods at least 8 times usually does the trick. However, if you have to reintroduce fifty times, don't give up!