Guess what parents? New research by Saint Louis University lays it on the line—if you want your kids to eat their fruits and vegetables, you better eat them too. Reuters reports:
The findings, reported in the journal Preventive Medicine, point to the importance of parents "modeling" a healthy diet for their preschoolers. They also suggest that educating parents on nutrition early on could help address the problem of childhood obesity, the researchers say.
About half of parents in the study were randomly assigned to receive home visits where they learned about nutrition and tactics for getting their children to eat fruits and vegetables. On average, these parents increased their fruit and vegetable intake, and in turn so did their children…
… In the end, parents in the High 5 group boosted their own fruit and vegetable intake, and children's increases correlated with their parents'.
The one exception was children who were already overweight, who generally did not grow fonder of fruits and vegetables.
"Overweight children," lead researcher Dr. Debra Haire-Joshu, of Saint Louis University School of Public Health in St. Louis said, "have already been exposed to salty, sweet foods and learned to like them. To keep a child from becoming overweight, parents need to expose them early to a variety of health foods and offer the foods many times.
Not exactly a new idea. Dr. Fuhrman insists healthy eating is fun for the whole family. Take me for example. My mom has always eaten a TON of veggies and it definitely helped me get hip to a vegetable-base diet. Thanks mom!