Want your child to eat more fruits and vegetables? Spending more time at the dinner table could help, German researchers say.
For their study, 50 pairs of parents and a child (25 boys and 25 girls who had an average age of 8) were served a meal of cold cuts, sliced bread and cheese, along with bite-sized fruits and vegetables.
The children ate “significantly more” of their fruits and vegetables when they sat at the table for 10 minutes longer, or 30 minutes in total. On average, they ate about 3.5 ounces more.
“The duration of the meal is one of the central components of a family meal which parents can vary to improve the diet of their children,” said Ralph Hertwig, director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.
The study was published online in JAMA Network Open.
