If you, like me, are forever playing the “hide the veggies” game with your children’s food, you might be relieved to learn that there might be a much simpler way to ensure your kids get their recommended five a day.
Relieved, but broke, that is.
Because vegetable aversion, it seems, is a problem that can be solved like most other problems in life: By throwing money at it.
Yep, mamas, you heard me. Paying your kids to eat their broccoli is apparently the way forward.
At least if this study published in the Journal of Health Economics is to be believed.
Over the course of a year and a half, researchers tested the theory that financial reward could positively affect children’s short-term healthy eating habits on 8,000 children at 40 elementary schools, grades 1 through 6.
And, alarmingly, what they found was that not only did the strategy work in the short-term, but, if the bribe was carried out consistently for several weeks, it actually created healthy eating habits in the long-run as well.
Yikes. Having kids just got even more expensive, it would seem.
In the study, if a child ate at least one serving of fruits or vegetables—such as an apple, fresh peaches, pineapple, side salad or a banana—they were given a 25-cent token they could redeem at the school’s store, carnival, or book fair.
Not surprisingly, researchers saw an immediate spike in consumption. But maybe a little surprising was that two months after the incentives ended, many children were continuing to eat more fruits and vegetables.
In fact, in schools that ran the incentive program for three weeks, 21 percent more children were eating at least one serving of fruit or vegetable at lunch than before. And in schools that ran the program for five weeks, an amazing 44 percent of students who took part in the study were continuing to choose fruit and vegetable options at lunch.
Time to break into the piggy bank, mamas.
