Toddlers Will Eat New Foods If They Look at Picture Books

Every parent at least once in their lifetime has faced the problem when their choosy children didn't want to try new foods. Psychologists from Reading University say that to solve the problem parents only have to show the picture of the new food before giving it to their toddler.

Researchers discovered that when one-year-old toddlers often look at photographs of foods, their interest in less known vegetables and fruits increases. They carried out an experiment in which parents were given books with four photographs illustrating: carrots, grapes, radish and lychees.

The child knew about the first two, while being unaware of radish and lychees. Parents then read the book together with their child each day for two weeks. After two weeks, toddlers were offered four different types of vegetables along with four different fruits - two vegetables and two fruits were described in the book, while the remaining foods were not.

Psychologists noticed that children were more likely to try unknown foods that they saw in the book, reports The Daily Telegraph.

According to Dr Carmel Houston-Price, the study's lead researcher from the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Science, in the near future researchers are going to analyze whether books featuring images of foods could be used to help parents feed new fruits and vegetables to their children.

Posted by mrexcellent