Vegetables are essential in the diet of the little ones. They are an interesting source of fiber, vitamins and minerals. They are introduced after six months, except most leafy vegetables that include nitrates and are offered at 12 months. From there, they constitute an important part of their diet.
But it is perhaps one of the food groups less accepted by children. What can we do to change it? Just as marketing is a powerful weapon that attracts children to what is known as "junk food," why not use it for children to get closer to healthier foods like vegetables? We will talk about how to do home marketing for children to eat vegetables.
If it works with junk food, also with vegetables
As babies, they accept them with more desire because we are the ones who offer them to them, but as they grow up and it is they who choose their own food, most children tend to put them aside.
The August issue of Pediatrics magazine suggests that promotional tactics, which are often attributed to the popularization of low-nutritious foods among American children, they can also get more children to choose vegetables at lunchtime.
Vinyl banners were placed around salad bars with vegetable cartoons indicating their "supernatural human strength" powers in a group of schools.
In other schools, television segments were shown with nutrition messages imparted by animated vegetable characters. A third group of study schools received both banners for salad bars and television segments and the control group received no intervention. In all schools that received intervention, stickers with animated vegetable characters were placed on the floor directing traffic to salad bars.
Almost more than twice as many students selected vegetables from the salad bar when they were exposed to the banners. More than triple the students exposed to banners and television segments visited salad bars to select vegetables. The promotional campaign also increased the amount of vegetable portions chosen during the usual lunch line.
Marketing for vegetables
We can't dress up as clowns, but we can do some things so that children feel more attracted to vegetables, for example:
Hang up posters in the kitchen mentioning the benefits of vegetables. Print the drawings on the computer and let them color them.
Transform them into characters: Talk about vegetables as if they were characters. Spinach can be Mister E, tomato, Mrs. T or you can even invite children to create their own characters. Tell them stories about these characters.
Search cartoon videos that exalt the benefits of vegetables. (I remember that "LazzyTown" my daughters loved them; they wanted to eat fruit).
Look together cooking programs, even better if children of the same age participate.
Let it I helped you in the kitchen
Build a garden at home: you don't need to have a huge place. On a terrace or balcony, it is also valid.
Search the variety when preparing them: muffins, skewers, veggie burgers, chard san jacobos ... there are multiple options so that they are not boring
With shapes: You have to put imagination when preparing and presenting them. You can present them cut with different shapes (using kitchen cutters) or even if you dare creating dishes like those made by this mother artist.
Prepare healthy snacks and leave them ready in the fridge: so, at the time of pecking, you can help them without resorting to less healthy foods.
