Children eat more vegetables after reward
How do you get your kids to eat more vegetables? It's an issue many parents struggle with. A pilot at 26 day-care centers in North Limburg shows that when children are offered vegetables on a daily basis and are rewarded for eating them, vegetable consumption goes way up.
Toddlers should eat at least 50 to 100 grams of vegetables per day, according to the guideline. Yet too often it appears that children do not consume the recommended amounts. One of the reasons for this is that children often don't like the green snacks on their plate. But how do you get them to eat the tomato, cucumber or carrot?
Supermarket chain ALDI and JOGG have been working together since 2018 to promote a healthy lifestyle among families with young children. From this cooperation, a pilot with the program Vegetable Boxes has rolled out in which 26 day-care centers in North Limburg have participated with the aim: to stimulate the vegetable consumption of young children.
Almost 600 children at day-care centers in Venlo, Venray and Weert participated in the pilot. Through the program, educators and pedagogical staff received practical tools to integrate vegetables as a snack into the daily rhythm of the children, at home and at the daycare center. The program also included practical materials to make vegetables part of the day at the daycare center in a fun and stimulating way.
Maastricht University studied the effect of the program. Britt van Belkom, researcher at the Chair of Youth, Nutrition & Health at Maastricht University Campus Venlo, conducted the study.
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