Convincing children to eat a healthy diet is a battle that can be won, even by trying to eliminate what distracts them from flavors.
To make children eat more fruit and vegetables, they need more time, a seated meal for at least 20 minutes. what emerges from a controlled clinical study of the University of Illinois and published on Jama Network Open.
For 4 consecutive weeks (20 days of study), on a summer campus at the university, the researchers compared the eating behaviors of 38 children between the ages of 8 and 14 during two lunch breaks, one for 10 minutes and the other for 20. Participants received a free lunch each day that met the nutritional standards of the national school program and that alternated 5 menus to ensure variety. At the end of the meal, the food left on each tray was weighed: in 10 minutes the children consumed less fruit (-11%) and fewer vegetables (-14%) compared to when they had more time, decreases recorded while taking into account variables such as cell phone use, chatting with friends, time to go to the bathroom.
In Italy, how much fruit and vegetables do young people eat?
The recommended portions are two 150g fruit and three vegetables per day (250g serving if vegetables to cook, 80g if salad), important for providing essential vitamins and minerals for healthy growth, explains Stefano Erzegovesi, psychiatrist, nutritionist and Head of the Eating Disorders Center of the Irccs San Raffaele Turro Hospital. In 2019, only 4.4% of 6-10 year olds consumed 5 or more servings, the percentage rises to 5.3% in the 11 to 14 year-old range, according to Istat data.
How to transfer scientific results into daily life where the first thing is missing is time?
In Italy, most of the meals for children and adolescents are eaten at home. To make them eat more fruit and vegetables, parents must, first of all, rediscover their self-efficacy, that is the awareness of being able to advantageously change certain habits such as, for example, changing the quality and duration of family meals. Today we live in an age where self-efficacy is low and the parent thinks: “Anyway my efforts don’t work and we fight more, better let it go.” You need to regain confidence in your parenting skills and never give up.
How do you organize yourself at home?
The time of the meal, in the study, proved capable of changing the way we “feel” the food we eat. Let us arrange for all family members to devote a longer time to the meal. precisely the aspect of globality, “all together”, which worked in the research. For those 20, even better 30, minutes at the table we remove the distractions – TV, smartphone and tablet – for everyone. Little by little, children and adolescents will focus more on what they are eating and will notice that they taste more. Furthermore, we offer a portion of vegetables at the beginning of the meal, when the palate is more inclined to appreciate the food, for example with a rag of onions, carrots and zucchini in the pasta sauce. We cut, reduce to creams or meatballs, freeze in single portions. Making fruit, with a sweet taste, easier to eat: just keep it on the most popular table in the house.
Are frozen vegetables as good as fresh ones?
There are losses of vitamins and minerals, but negligible. Today’s children and adolescents are at risk of getting used to the salt, sugar, fat and low fiber flavors of industrial foods and may be adults at greater risk of cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, type 2 diabetes, overweight and obesity. In 2021, the WHO revealed that 3 out of 10 children in Italy are overweight and 1 of these is obese.
February 28, 2022 (change February 28, 2022 | 09:01)
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