Struggling to Get Your Kids to Eat Fruits and Vegetables?
Take a child to a garden full of colorful vegetables or an orchard filled with sweet smelling fruit, and I bet your little ones will want to take a few bites…and then a few more.
Our recent family trip to the local pick-your-own peach farm confirmed my belief that exposing my daughter to how our food grows is good for her health. All her senses were engaged: the smell of ripe peaches, the site of beautiful green trees dotted with yellow-orange peaches, the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves, the feel of a fuzzy peach, and best of all, the taste of amazingly sweet, juicy peaches.
She loved picking peaches. She’d pick a peach and immediately open wide to take a big bite. She thought every peach she picked, she could eat. We taught her to pick a peach and then run over to the basket and gently place it in with the others. The “gently” part took quite a while for her to catch on to – pitching it with all the force an 18 month old could muster seemed to be the technique she preferred.
Bring a bottle of water to wash the fruit before taking a bite. |
Although peach season has ended in much of the country, apple picking has just begun. Check out www.pickyourown.org to find local pick-your-own farms in your area.
If you don’t live near an orchard or farm, you can still teach your children about the way different food grows and provide them with opportunities to taste different fruits and vegetables from the store. Your local librarian is a great resource and is bound to know some good children’s books on how various fruits and vegetables grow. Our library has a book entitled Apple Harvest that my daughter loved. At the grocery store, we looked at all the different colors of apples and selected a few different types of apples to try at home. The sight of an apple now evokes an excited “APPLE!” exclamation from her.
There is a wealth of research showing that children’s participation in gardening, harvesting, or just preparing food increases the likelihood that they will try the food. If eating fruits and vegetables is a struggle between you and your child, try a different technique. Involve your child in preparing different fruit and vegetable dishes and let them decide if they’ll try it. I bet they’ll take a bite.
