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.
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