The U.S. Department of Agriculture really wants kids to eat better, especially during school lunches where parents have a lesser impact on what their children shove down their gullets. To that extent, it is spending $2 million researching how to trick them into picking healthier meal options.
Writes the AP:
Some of the ideas include hiding chocolate milk behind plain milk, putting the salad bar near checkout, placing fruit in pretty baskets and accepting only cash as payment for desserts.
On the topic of kid’s food choices, we’ve written about a study showing that kids think food tastes better if there is a cartoon on the packaging, as well as a program to put carrots in high school cafeteria vending machines.
School cafeterias to try psychology in lunch line [Boston.com]
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sweet potatoes rock!!! they are a really awesome way for kids to get their vitamins. Baked sweet potato fries…
you wouldn’t have to trick kids into eating healthier foods if what the school served didn’t taste like cardboard to start with, and there was enough time for them to get 500 kids through the lunch line and expect the last ones in line to have more than 5 min to eat. My son’s high school is like that. 30 min for lunch. 500 kids… and you wonder why they pick the fries and such, because they can eat it as they’re being kicked out the door to class.
When did we get so concerned about our kids having choices. When I was in school, we had 2 choices everyday. The healthy, hot lunch or the healthy salad bar. Anything like desert or soda cost extra, so the parents could choose whether or not their kids could get the unhealthy items. There was even a lady near the salad bar that made sure you didn’t put more than 2 tablespoons of dressing on your salad!!!
We can’t expect children to make healthy choices on their own. Hell, even most adults don’t do that! About 30 years ago, parents stopped being coaches and started being cheerleaders and our country is worse for it. Children are just like adults in that they will always choose instant gratification over long-term success unless they are taught otherwise by their parents.
Take the unhealthy crap out of schools and only serve nutritious food! I live in Ukraine now, and in schools they serve porridge and vegetables almost every day and the children eat it with a smile!!! They don’t cry about their not being able to get french fries and pizza.
American parents need to man up and take responsibility for their children by being parents and not “best friends” to their children. It’s so sad that parents give their children less choice over the television that they watch (which has no real impact to the children long-term) than their health.