Presentation and innovation are key to kids' healthy food habits: Study

By Jess Halliday, 05-May-2010, Food & Nutrition News

A new study on children’s willingness to eat fruit indicates that they are prepared to eat twice as much when it is visually appearing, findings that could help inform food producers’ strategies as well as parents’.

The food industry has long striven to make food for children as appealing as possible and less healthy products might come in bright colours, unusual shapes or with a gift or toy. But with pressure to address the growing tide of obesity, as well as measures to curb marketing of unhealthy foods to kids, both parents and the food industry are keyed into ways to encourage children to eat more healthily.

The researchers behind the new study, accepted for publication in the Elsevier journal Appetite, set out to assess the impact of restriction and visual appearance on children’s willingness to eat.

They recruited 94 children aged between 4 and 7 years from primary schools in Belgium and The Netherlands. Two tasting sessions took place, both involving one platter of regular fruit and one platter of visually appealing fruit cut into shapes.

In the first session, the children were divided into two groups. Each group was allowed to eat from one platter but not the other. In the second session, all the children were allowed to eat as much as they wanted from both platters.

The researchers, led by Ester Jansen of Maastricht University, were surprised to observe that previous restriction of one form of fruit did not seem to make the children eat more the next time they were allowed to. This ran counter to their hypothesis that sweets are attractive to children because parents often restrict them.

They did find, however, that the children were prepared to eat twice as much of the attractive fruit as they were the normal, unprepared fruit.

“Parents, schools, supermarkets and food producers should take advantage of these results and offer children fruit and vegetables that are presented in a visually appealing manner,” Jansen and colleagues wrote.

The children expressed awareness that the two forms of fruit would taste exactly the same. “Perhaps it was not about taste, but about fun,” the researchers suggest. In any case, that the visual appeal was the driver behind higher consumption was an assumption that the researchers admitted was a limitation of the study.

They also said that novelty could be a factor. “It cannot be predicted for how long a new, more (visually) appealing presentation of fruit remains interesting for children,” they wrote.


“When children are exposed to a new kind of fruit presentation for a number of times, they might lose interest in the fruit. Therefore, in the long term, it is probably necessary for parents and food producers to remain innovative.”

It is really nice to cut fruit in fun shapes with these children can eat easily they feel lot of enjoy while they can eat the fruits . With these idea children can stay healthy .

We are a cut fruit a simple but we will be cutting a many design in fruit for a decoration.
We will be a fun types cutting a fruit so many children will be attraction in it and enjoy it thus fruit is a better for health so children eat it and get a vitamins by fruit.

Well, Those edible arrangements look so neat. I always wondered if they would be as easy to put together as I thought. I honestly never thought of using cookie cutters for the flower shapes. I thought they would just be cut free hand. I have so much to learn.

I think that this was really nice for cutting fruit in different shapes, I really like to cut fruits in different shapes, by this we can make our salad stylish, I hope that many people will really like this.

It's really a good thing so that we can attract children to eat fruits though they do not like it. The researchers behind the new study accepted for publication in the journal Appetite Elsevier, designed to assess the impact of the restriction and the visual impact of the will of the child to eat. I just got to cut the fruit into fun with these children can eat light, they feel much enjoy while they can eat the fruit.

These one is good information. Its really a good things. It is really nice to cut fruit in fun shapes with these children can easy attract on it and they feel lot of enjoy while they can eat this kind of funny shape fruits. I really like to cut fruits in different shapes, by this we can make our salad stylish and attractive.

I have been thinking stuff that he can most definitely eat on his own. I am sure teachers would not mind helping, but I figure if they have to help 10 kids at a time. something's going to get spilled.

Interesting, Edible Arrangements look so nice. I always wondered if they would be just as easy to put together what I thought. Honestly, I never thought of using cookie cutters in shapes of flowers. I thought they just wanted to cut his hands free. I have so much to learn.

Cut fruit into flower shapes, then use your creations to flower fruit bouquets, shopping baskets or fruit shows ho-hum in fun conversation pieces. Choose a variety of colourful fruits that are firm and not too juicy to your flowers fruit. Your guests will be impressed and they may chew on your creation, too.