By Hannah Dawson For The Daily Mail
Published: 01:55 BST, 8 May 2019 | Updated: 01:56 BST, 8 May 2019
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It is the classic last-ditch strategy for desperate parents whose children refuse to clear their plates.
But telling them to eat their greens so they will grow up to be big and strong may actually work.
Children told healthy foods are good for them, or will help them ‘run fast and jump high’, eat far more of those foods, a study found.
Researchers presented three to five-year-olds with green peppers, lentils, tomatoes and quinoa at school over six weeks.
More than half of four-year-olds remember being told that they should eat carrots because they help people to see in the dark
When children were repeatedly given the food they least liked, they ate an extra seven grams of it in one sitting. But they ate twice as much extra food after encouraging comments such as ‘lentils help you learn and help you grow’.
Dr Jane Lanigan, who led the study from Washington State University, said: ‘Every child wants to be bigger, faster, able to jump higher. Using these types of examples made the food more attractive to eat.’
Researchers asked 87 children to rate the raw green peppers and tomatoes, and the plain
