Researchers at Bristol University studying foods eaten by three-year-olds found that one in six children ate no vegetables -and a similar number turned their noses up at fruit.
Some (5%) of pre-school children, studied over a three-day period as part of the Children of the 90s project, ate neither fruit nor vegetables. Even more surprisingly, when compared with their eating habits recorded at 18-months-old, it showed they were eating fewer vegetables than when they were toddlers.
It is notoriously difficult to persuade children to eat these foods yet it is maybe an extremely important part of the diet with far reaching health benefits.
Mrs Emmett, the study’s senior nutritionist said, “It is important to try to make fruit and vegetable eating part of the normal meal pattern in the family.”
The study also showed that the children ate less meat than 3-year-old children in a national survey carried out four years previously.
Meat is a major source of iron in the diet and the scientist found that the mean intake of iron was lower than the reference level. Perhaps worries about BSE had led to this.
Mrs Emmett pointed out that, “No one has yet had a chance to study the effect of the changes in diet which many people made in response to the BSE scares. It is true that the amount of iron in the diets of children recently has been much lower than in the past. Further research into the development of these children is necessary.”
The Children of the 90s study (known scientifically as ALSPAC), based in Bristol, is following children from before birth and looking at all aspects of their health and development.
This group of children has had their diet recorded several times during the pre-school years. Mrs Emmett pointed out that the information collected will be extremely valuable in trying to find out what foods keep us healthy. The team hope one day to be in a position to make scientifically valid recommendations about ‘healthy diets’.
Notes
"Food and nutrient intakes of a population sample of 3-year-old children in the South West of England in 1996" Pauline Emmett, Imogen Rogers, Carol Symes and the ALSPAC Study Team. Public Health Nutrition. doi: 10.1079/PHN2001241
ALSPAC The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (also known as Children of the 90s) is a unique ongoing research project based in the University of Bristol. It enrolled 14,000 mothers during pregnancy in 1991-2 and has followed most of the children and parents in minute detail ever since.