Another strategy is to feed children purées that contain single vegetables, rather than the combinations of vegetables and sweet fruits, like pear and broccoli, widely sold by baby and toddler food manufacturers. These odd combinations lead kids to believe that vegetables are enjoyable only when they are sweetened. Ms. Siegel also explains how the efforts of well-meaning parents can backfire. Scolding kids to clean their plates, bribing them to eat their vegetables, and applying other forms of pressure can make them even less likely to eat a given food.
Children take cues from adults, and it is best to expose them to nutritious foods in structured environments. Studies show that they are more receptive to new and unfamiliar foods when they sit at a table with adults and observe them eating those foods enthusiastically.
What parents should not do is throw in the towel and feed their kids a steady diet of chicken nuggets and buttered noodles. They should continue offering their kids a variety of foods, Ms. Siegel says, trusting that their palates will evolve. Many nutritious foods are acquired tastes and it can take a minimum of 15 exposures before children appreciate them.
But food companies know that this is a vulnerable time for parents, and many try to capitalize on it. Kellogg’s has marketed its Eggo waffles to parents as a product that will “win over the pickiest eaters,” while Kraft Heinz ran an ad showing a young boy gagging when his parents offered him freshly baked salmon for dinner and then smiling happily when they gave him tacos drenched in Kraft shredded cheese instead.
“It serves the processed food industry to lead you to think that this is the way kids are,” Ms. Siegel said, “and that’s a destructive and easy trap to fall into.”
A former food industry lawyer turned food advocate, Ms. Siegel sent her kids to public school in Houston and began to push for reforms after she joined a committee to review her school district’s food menus. Ms. Siegel started a popular blog, the Lunch Tray, where she writes about children and food. She started petitions that garnered national attention, including one that famously called for schools to stop serving beef scraps known as “pink slime” in cafeterias. Another petition criticized McDonald’s for its in-school marketing efforts.
While researching the National School Lunch Program, Ms. Siegel discovered the enormous constraints that school nutrition programs often face, like chronic underfunding, labor shortages and inadequate school kitchens. One consequence of this is that many school districts see little choice but to open their doors to fast and processed food companies, allowing them to stock their cafeterias and vending machines with the branded junk foods that children find irresistible.
Source : Nytimes
