Help! How can I get my children to eat fruit and vegetables?


Carrots? No thanks! While many children are happy to eat anything and everything, a large number will refuse certain foods. Most often, the foods children don’t want to eat are the healthy ones that mums and dads most want them to consume, particularly fruits and vegetables. But why is this?


Children will often reject foods that are unfamiliar to them. Once they become more mobile, around 18-24 months, they become wary of bitter tastes and of foods that look ‘different’. This response is aimed at protecting children, to ensure that they don’t eat things that are poisonous, but it can be worrying for parents if their child suddenly decides they no longer like the broccoli or tomatoes that they happily ate as a baby.


One effective way to help to get children to eat new foods is to increase children’s familiarity with them. Increasing food familiarity can be done at mealtimes, but also in a various other ways where eating the food is not the goal, such as by:

  • Encouraging your child to play with foods.
     
  • Find pictures of fruits and vegetables that children can colour in or draw, or try using real fruits and vegetables in messy play -- potato shapes or dried peas are great for creating different effects when painting.
     
  • Taking your child to the shops or local market so that they can see different fruits and vegetables. Make a game of it. For example - who can spot three yellow foods?
     
  • Involving your child in preparing meals so they get used to seeing and handling foods in their different states (raw, cooked). Children will often feel a sense of pride knowing that they’ve helped to make a meal or bake a lemon cake.
     
  • Varying the way that you offer a food. For example, raw carrot is fun not only as sticks (great for dipping) but also grated.
     
  • Being a good role model. Seeing you eating and enjoying a food can reduce the extent to which a child is wary of it. Making it fun.
     
  • Try chopping fruit and vegetables into faces or use them to make juices or healthy lollies.
     
  • Above all, keep calm and never pressure or force a child to eat something that s/he doesn’t want to. Eating should be an enjoyable experience for all members of the family.


Dr Emma Haycraft & Dr Gemma Witcomb are researchers at Loughborough University Centre for Research into Eating Disorders. They are also forum experts for Dr Joanna Helcke and will be on the forum taking questions and offering advice.