Veggie Tales!

A blog post by Amber Muhinyi (29/11/2022)

Did you know that less than 1 in 5 children in the UK eat the recommended five portions of fruit or veg per day (NHS Digital, 2019)?

Have you ever wondered about how to encourage your little one to eat more veggies?

A research team at The University of Reading, led by Professor Carmel Houston Price, recently conducted a study where they looked at just that. These researchers looked at whether picture books could be used to help introduce vegetables into toddlers’ mealtimes!

So what did they do?

First, the researchers asked parents to choose one vegetable and one fruit that they wanted their toddler to eat (incidentally, which vegetable would you choose?)

Then, they toddlers into one of three groups:

The first group were given a book about their chosen vegetable… The second group were given a book about their chosen fruit… and the toddlers in the third group, the control group, weren’t given any book at all…

The researchers asked parents in the two book groups to look at the picture book with their toddler for 5 minutes every day for 2 whole weeks.

And then after the two weeks of book reading with their book – either the vegetable book or the fruit book – depending on which group they were in – parents were asked to offer their toddlers the target foods every day for 2 whole weeks.

Crucially, at the start of the study, the researchers asked parents how much their child liked certain foods and how much their children ate certain foods. Then they collected this same information from the parents after the 2 weeks’ reading and 2 weeks’ food tasting… and again 3 months later.

So what did they find?

–  Toddlers in all of the groups – so the two book groups and the control group who had no book – all liked both of the foods – the fruit and the veg – more after the two weeks of tasting the foods…

–  And, parents whose toddlers who saw the vegetable book reported that their toddlers liked the chosen vegetable MORE and ate more of it immediately after the intervention as compared to the control group who didn’t see the books…what’s more, even 3 months later, toddlers from the vegetable book group liked and ate more of the target vegetable as compared to the control group

– Another really interesting finding is that the toddlers who had the vegetable book were less fussy and less anxious about trying new foods generally!

So… picture books aren’t just about having fun! Looking at picture books about vegetables with your little one might actually encourage them to eat their veggies!