Why do kids hate vegetables? Helping kids include greens in their diet

Most toddlers reject vegetables; the problem lies more with the parents who inadvertently teach their kids to not eat vegetables and instead create a taste for other flavors. They are quite satisfied in cultivating taste for other things that they believe supply all the nutrients.

Vegetables are healthy for children and it lies on parents to shape the taste buds of their children and abstain from those foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt like sweetened yogurt, apple juice, crackers, pizza, and cheese. Creating a flavor for these items throughout the day will make children reject other natural foods like vegetables with their taste buds craving for those items.

Most parents act as Nutrient-Providers and Detectives; they deliver nutritional foods, at least minimally and their kids will like them contributing to restricting rather than expanding, your kids’ palates. This encourages parents to feed their children foods that have the same taste and texture.

Instead parents need to be taste-bud shapers influencing the child’s taste preferences in each bite. They need to consciously start shaping their kid’s taste buds for vegetables. They should start off by weaning the child away from sugar, salt and fat and shift the child’s daily diet to more fresh and natural foods; temporarily some sugar, salt and fats could be added to vegetables. Shift the child’s intake daily to natural and fresh foods and use foods liked occasionally as treats.

You could get your kids to eat more vegetables/greens by:

Parents need to set an example by themselves eating a lot of vegetables; kids eat what they know and would not eat vegetables unless they know it is an option.

Relating healthy foods like broccoli to fun things or a game is a great way to promote a few bites of greens in kids. Children would love when their food is designed into patterns on the plate; the shape of a heart or smiley face would make them like the food and also consider it fun.  

Parents can promote eating of greens in children by involving them in the preparation; take your kids with you to the farmer’s market and let them pick a few things to cook and set the table. This will give them a sense of pride and makes them more enthusiastic and cooperative at meal time.

Enforce the “one bite rule” where you expose the child to a food at least 8 to 10 times and require the child to take one solid mouthful till it is accepted; once the child becomes familiar with the food he/she will begin to rate it more favorably.

Never force a child to finish the plate each time and start a fight; negative food experiences have the opposite effect and will actually increase picky eating tendencies.

Research shows that rewarding a child for taking one bite of the rejected greens actually makes them rate the food more positively in future.

Never tell your child that greens and certain foods are healthy; children have different values and would appreciate being told that eating certain foods would make them big and strong.

Make food more appealing to children by using flavors like butter, garlic and bacon; however avoid strange chemicals and use minimally processed foods.

Offer diverse food colors as children like colorful foods; it would be a good idea to make separate vegetable dishes instead of a big, mono-color casserole for kids.

As a conclusive note, be patient and persistent in solving picky eating problems as habits built at a young age remain right into adulthood.

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