How Can You Get Your Kids to Eat Vegetables?

Parents all over the world have long struggled to find creative ways to trick their kids into eating vegetables without having them spit them out all over the kitchen table.

Mission accomplished.

A recent study suggests that getting kids to consume their recommended daily vegetable intake may be as easy as simply giving a more colorful name to what they believe to be gross and despicable health foods.

In a study spanning five diverse schools, researchers at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab found that vegetables renamed things like “X-Ray Vision Carrots,” “Power Punch Broccoli,” “Tiny Tasty Tree Tops,” and “Silly Dilly Green Beans” succeeded in attracting more attention from students than the dreaded “Food of the Day” that they have grown accustom to seeing on the menu.

Not only did the kids want the vegetables on their plate, but an impressive number actually ate them. For example, 66 percent of “X-Ray Vision Carrots” were eaten compared to the 32 percent of kids who munched on them when they were simply referred to as carrots.

Lead Researcher Brian Wansink says his team’s data could provide parents and schools with an inexpensive way to get children to eat healthier.

"These results demonstrate that using attractive names for healthy foods increases kid's selection and consumption of these foods and that an attractive name intervention is robust, effective and scalable at little or no cost," said Wansink. "This research also confirms that using attractive names to make foods sound more appealing works on individuals across all age levels."

Additional research by the Food and Brand Lab also discovered that in schools where more attractive vegetable names were used, overall purchases increased 99 percent versus a decline of 16 percent in schools that went with the generic name.

However, we do not care what clever name they come up with for beets -- we’re still not eating them.

[Huffington Post]