«Food should be free from pressure»
Mrs Kröller, what is the worst mistake when trying to get children interested in healthy eating?
Presumably the emphasis on health. Eating should be free of pressure. It helps if fussy eaters in particular perceive it as a casual, rather incidental matter. Parents should focus their efforts on opening up a variety of flavours to children instead of struggling with the question of how to get vegetables into their mouths.
What characterises the taste of our children?
Children have their first taste experiences during pregnancy and breastfeeding. We know that children who get to know a variety of flavours as early as possible become more open-minded eaters. This is particularly true of the time when we get them used to eating. In many parts of the world, even the youngest children eat what the older ones like.
So we can teach children to like healthy food?
If we deprive children of flavour experiences, it is not surprising that they become difficult eaters. Flavour preferences can be trained. This is impressively demonstrated by a research project that I accompanied. We regularly surveyed the vegetable preferences of 300 kindergarten children and derived a kind of ranking from this. We investigated whether these preferences could be changed through sensory training. Kohlrabi, for example, proved to be rather unpopular. The children were then given this food three times a week for four to eight weeks.
What happened?
Kohlrabi climbed up the rankings, and significantly so. Our preference for a food depends heavily on how well we know it. We like what we are used to. If I am offered what I don't like every day, I will eventually start to accept it.
Not a particularly motivating approach.
This should not be the message to the child. However, if our child dislikes something, this should not prevent us as parents from continuing to bring the food to the table regularly, without any fuss. The child doesn't have to eat it, but remains in contact with it.
Is that the only way you got children to like kohlrabi?
Not only that. Sensory and haptic contact with vegetables - smelling, tasting, touching - also influences the perception of flavour. We prepared vegetable snacks together, made up stories about the funny tubers, had the children paint vegetables or taste them with associated flavours. These guessing games revealed that children are incredibly creative when it comes to naming flavours. Parents could capitalise on this.
In what way?
We only want the children to tell us whether it tastes good. We could ask them what it tastes like instead. Our study showed that simply talking about the flavour of a food promotes its acceptance by the child. Interestingly, even talking about the flavour disadvantages of a vegetable helped the children to like it better in the end than before. Incidentally, the fact that vegetables are healthy and rich in vitamins was more of an incidental piece of information in our project, but not the central message.
Studies show that simply talking about the flavour of a food encourages children to accept it.
What do parents do when teenagers refuse vegetables and salad?
The same applies here: remain patient, wait and see, offer meals together. Depending on age, these no longer have to take place every day, so it's worth making arrangements. It can also help to offer healthy food in such a way that young people perceive it as incidental. I'm thinking of fruit or snack vegetables that everyone can help themselves to during the meal or in between. Occasionally, jazzed-up sandwiches or the young person's favourite food are also a good compromise for the family meal. It's worthwhile if all family members can have a say in the weekly meal plan. Rigid guidelines only lead to teenagers buying their food from the kiosk.
The tendency to eat unhealthy food is usually pronounced in young people. Is this growing?
It does. Studies show that the diet that parents model at home has a significant influence on their children in adulthood. So don't worry: something sticks. It just takes time for this effect to take hold. Until then, young people may reject vegetables completely - they won't be harmed.
«Five a day» is the message from the Swiss Society for Nutrition when it comes to fruit and vegetables. How can this be achieved with children?
Not at all, probably. I don't think much of it because it puts parents under pressure. If parents are asked to fulfil quotas, it makes it more difficult for them to enjoy vegetables. For children, however, this is crucial. We've already done a lot if we try to eat fruit once a day and vegetables once a day. There may also be days when this doesn't work or the child resists. That's not a bad thing.
Trying is a must - what do you think?
The most you can do is encourage a child to try things out. Pressure is inappropriate. At various stages of development, children attach great importance to independent decisions and they also know that they have the most influence when it comes to eating: We can force children to do many things, but if they refuse to eat, we are powerless. If a child doesn't want to try, parents should accept that. At the same time, we can explain to them that tastes change and that it may be worth trying again.
Should we use food as a reward?
It depends. We don't do ourselves any favours if we promise the child a dessert if they finish the broccoli. By rewarding him, we confirm to him that eating broccoli is a pretty tough job that requires compensation. Rewarding with food can work if the action we want to praise is actually negative - think of ice cream after a doctor's appointment. However, we should also use this type of reward very sparingly. Food should not become a consolation.
