US scientists at the Agricultural Research Service have created the Kiddio: Food Fight smartphone app to try and get children to eat more vegetables.
ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Centre psychologist Tom Baranowski said: “We are creating a fun, science-based video game that gives parents of pre-schoolers a quick, easy way to learn some of the best approaches for getting their kids to eat more veggies."
Baranowski is also a professor of paediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas.
The app offers users a series of short, interactive episodes that they can play on their smartphone. The fast-paced game features Kiddio, an appealing pre-school child who does not like vegetables. His responses - whether to take a bite or say "Yuk" are based on what researchers have learned about kids' reactions to parental tactics.
Each episode gives users several choices of what to do to improve the youngster's eating habits. Parents can even customise the game so that Kiddio's temperament matches that of their own child.
Baranowski said: "We want the game to be relevant to the real-world food-choice issues of their household."
Parents can select with a quick touch on the screen multiple options for influencing Kiddio. For example, after deciding whether to offer Kiddio a serving of broccoli, carrots, sweetcorn or peas, players next select what to say to him to incrase the chances that he will at least taste the vegetable.
"Some of these options "create effective, teachable moments, such as when the parent says, 'That's a really tasty veggie,'" said Baranowski. "Other options may express a perhaps ineffective, firm-discipline approach in which the parent tells Kiddio, 'You will taste it before you leave the table.'"
Each of the options and responses is based on a parenting practice and kids' reactions that Baranowski and his team have studied during their research. By working their way through the various options, parents can learn which tactics succeed.
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