Parents who want their children to eat fruits and vegetables should practice what they preach, a new US study suggests.
The study, carried out by the Saint Louis University School of Public Health, looked at more than 1,300 families. Researchers found that parents who boosted their own consumption of fruits and vegetables were copied in their consumption habits by their young children.
The findings, reported in Preventive Medicine, were that not only can parents lead by example, but they themselves need educating on nutrition and the need to address the problem of childhood obesity.
Nearly half of the participating parents were taught about nutrition and given tactics to get their children to eat fruit and veg - including eating the foods in front of their children and allowing them to choose which fruits and vegetables they wanted to eat. On average, these parents increased their fruit and vegetable intake, and in turn so did their children.
"We know that parents have a tremendous influence over how many fruits and vegetables their children eat," lead researcher Dr Debra Haire-Joshu, said.
"When parents eat more fruits and vegetables, so do their children," she added. "When parents eat and give their children high fat snacks or soft drinks, children learn these eating patterns instead."
The one obvious exception to the rule was children who were overweight when the study began, who generally did not grow fonder of fruits and vegetables.
"Overweight children," Haire-Joshu said, "have already been exposed to salty, sweet foods and learned to like them. To keep a child from becoming overweight, parents need to expose them early to a variety of health foods and offer the foods many times."
