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Make eating fun and set a personal example with a healthy diet
Seasonal fruit and vegetable consumption is in full swing, and if your kids are still frowning at you, it’s a good idea not to leave it at that. Because, as can be seen in the coronavirus crisis, immunity is one of the few things that can guarantee that a person faces unknown viruses and diseases.
A good portion of food is an important condition for children to like it. PHOTO: Reuters
So while the topic of the pandemic is still in vogue in children’s minds, use it as a reason to include more fruits and vegetables on your menu, nutritionists advise. Of course, this cannot happen just by talking about how good they are for the body, especially if the child is already used to eating French fries for garnish or waffles, cookies and chocolate for dessert.
“You will need to use things that kids are interested in, like TV commercials for some unhealthy foods, to encourage them to eat healthy and have fun eating fruits and vegetables,” said Carrie Cotrint, assistant to the College of Family. and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia. She has been researching food neophobia for years and says that fear of trying new things is especially common among children from low-income families. So she’s happy to have managed this summer to run a long-planned experiment to see if the fun and intriguing presentation of fruits and vegetables can make them her favorite food. It is a truck with fairy tale characters. It sounds like music the way ice cream caravans lure customers onto the streets of America. In this case, however, Frey, Perry Pear, and Casey Carrot, who are riding in the truck, are delivering fruits and vegetables to playgrounds in poor areas of Georgia. They also show easy recipes for preparing dishes from them.
“We wanted to know if they like to eat healthy, if they get the chance, and our expectations have been largely confirmed. At the end of our 4-week experiment, most of the children shared that they liked the taste of ready-made meals. and that they would try them again at home or at school, ”explains Cotrint.
According to her, you may have to offer a new fruit or vegetable 10 times to get them to accept it, and it’s good to arm yourself with patience and ingenuity to make it more interesting. Repeated exposure is very important. This means that there are always washed fruits or vegetables on the dining room table.
If it is a small child, it must be cut into pieces, cleaned of shells and seeds, so that it does not drown, scare and does not touch it again. It is better for parents to familiarize the child with everything they will eat in an interesting way through a fairy tale, song or personal story. If you already have a favorite fruit, you can introduce the others as its relatives. For example, for a long time I served my son something yellow for a papaya brother or sister. The reason is that in his early years living in Ethiopia, he mainly ate this and bananas. Then, on returning to Europe, it was a big problem to try other fruits. And even though he’s grown up and knows and knows everyone’s tastes, from time to time he still says minpapaya for peaches and apricots, and papaya papaya for melons.
Australian Rebecca, for example, became famous in a local parenting social group with her fruit and vegetable arrangements to entice her 4-year-old daughter to eat them. He cuts them into pieces in different shapes, then turns them into human faces and different animals on a plate. She says this trick works because her little girl is so curious and thinks she is a continuation of the fairy tale world she loves. Another mother says she learned how to make sushi for her children with a DIY kit to replace the unhealthy sandwiches they used to carry in their lunch boxes at school. “I realized that they are beginning to eat more and more harmful foods. They don’t like fruit at all. Thank God they like vegetables and fish and that was an option to change direction,” says Susan.
So, the possibilities are many and you should not give up in case of failure, since the benefits of eating fruits and vegetables have been proven by science. “The earlier you feed your child and increase her daily intake, the greater the chance of reducing the risk of obesity and chronic diseases and creating healthy habits for adulthood,” says Carrie Cotrant. She points out that about 30% of teens in Georgia are overweight, resulting in diseases like hypertension and diabetes, and the obesity rate among youth from low-income families is even higher due to lack of access to healthy food.
In our country the situation is similar. According to a UNICEF study, 28.47% of Bulgarian children from 5 to 19 years old are overweight, and their number increased by 120% between 1990 and 2016. Our country is one of the last places in terms of fruit consumption and vegetables in the EU. According to Eurostat, only 37 percent of Bulgarians consume fruit every day, compared to an average of 64% in the European Union and 85% in Italy. Vegetables are present in the daily menu of 45 percent of our population, while in Ireland and Belgium the percentage is 84.
Parents should know that it is up to them if their children will eat healthy. A study from the University of Oregon found that children who are more exposed to processed foods and highly processed foods at home are less likely to eat fruits and vegetables in kindergarten and school. “Parents’ preferences for sugar, fat and salt also affect their children’s tastes, even if they initially try to prepare age-appropriate foods for them,” said Benita Cornwell of the research team. The reason is that teens copy the behavior of adults and generally need convincing arguments why something is forbidden for them and allowed for mom and dad.
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