The No-Battles Way to Get Your Kids to Eat Them . . . and Even Enjoy Them
28 Feb 2007
Getting kids to eat vegetables can sometimes be a challenge, especially when a child has decided that he is “someone-who-hates-vegetables!” Many parents, with the very best of intentions, end up begging, bribing, forcing or tricking their children into eating their vegetables. But arguing over eating will only lead to unpleasant mealtimes—and turn the veggies into the ultimate bad-guys.
So, how can you teach your children to enjoy vegetables and eat them without a fight? While there is no magic answer that will instantly turn your child into a vegetable lover, you can shift gradually your child’s attitude. Here’s a plan:
1. Regularly serve the vegetables your child likes. Point out how fantastic the vegetables taste whenever he is enjoying them in any form. Remember, there are vegetables in pumpkin pie, spaghetti sauce, salsa, zucchini bread, carrot cake, and even pizza sauce!
2. Serve vegetables when your child is most hungry, and therefore most tempted to eat—perhaps after school or just before dinner. Dress up the veggies with a dip, low-fat cheese, or dressing.
3. Enjoy vegetables yourself. Over time, role modeling is the most important tool for convincing kids that vegetables do taste good. If you don’t like the vegetables you serve, experiment with new recipes or new types of vegetables.
4. When kids flat out refuse their vegetables, resist the urge to comment. Instead, make the vegetables seem more valuable by asking if you can eat the ones they don’t want.
5. Put some vegetables on your kid’s plate at every meal, even when you are pretty sure they won’t eat them. Research shows that kids often need 10 or more exposures to a food before they’re ready to eat it.
If you follow these five steps consistently, your child will gradually learn to like vegetables. Meanwhile (and just as importantly) there will be fewer fights at the dinner table. Once your child does become “some-who-LOVES-vegetables,” he’ll eat plenty of them—even when you aren’t there to make it happen—and he’ll continue to eat them when he grows up.
Pamela Gould is the author of Feeding the Kids: The Flexible, No-Battles, Healthy Eating System for the Whole Family, a book that will make feeding your family easy, healthy, and great tasting—every day. Find out more at www.feedingthekids.com.
