A study showed that an extended dinner led children to eat more fruits and vegetables; bite-size portions also helped them eat more in the extra time.
, the director of nutrition at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who was not involved in the research. “Kids are perfectly happy to eat fruits and vegetables.”by the authors, who evaluated dozens of earlier studies to determine what factors steered children toward more-healthful foods during family dinners.
Fifty parent-child “dyads” — one child, one parent — with children ranging in age from 6 to 11, ate two meals a week in a “neutral, friendly” room with a table, two chairs, the food and video equipment in the ceiling that focused on each of the two participants, Mata said.They were not told the exact purpose of the study, only that the researchers were interested in “a better understanding of family meals,” Mata said.
Participants were unaware of the specific intent of the study, so the researchers did not tell them how much time they had to eat. Instead, when each meal began, they told the participants only when they would bring dessert, which made the time difference less noticeable.Bite-size portions may have made the more-healthful foods easier to eat, but time was the key factor in eating more, the researchers say.
The researchers emphasized that “bite-sized fruits and vegetables in the context of longer family meals increases the consumption of fruits and vegetables,” and they stressed the importance of eating together for longer. It is unclear whether “sitting a child alone at a table for 10 minutes longer would increase their fruit and vegetable intake,” Mata said.Interestingly, the children ate extra vegetables early in the meal and the extra fruit toward the end.
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