Children ate more carrots when they were re-named 'X-ray Vision Carrots’ © RexIf you’re struggling to get your kids to eat their five fruit and veg a day, there may be an easy, cost-free (albeit slightly obvious) solution to your troubles.
A new study has found that kids are more likely to eat vegetables if they are renamed something fun and catchy.
American scientists studied eating habits in five schools after they renamed vegetables to see if it would affect 147 of the schoolchildren’s consumption.
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They renamed carrots to ‘X-ray Vision Carrots’ and found that 66 per cent more carrots were eaten by the pupils.
Only 35 per cent more children ate the carrots when they were unnamed, suggesting re-naming vegetables into something fun and catchy could encourage healthy eating amongst children.
"This research suggests that schools have a low-cost or even no-cost solution to induce children to consume more nutritious foods," said Brian Wansink, lead author of the study which was conducted by Cornell University.
[Related article: Get your child to love vegetables]
"[They] demonstrate that using attractive names for healthy foods increases kid's selection and consumption of these foods.”
The researchers also conducted a second study in which they re-named other vegetables and looked at their sales in two separate schools.
They re-named broccoli "Power Punch Broccoli" and "Tiny Tasty Tree Tops" and re-named green beans "Silly Dilly Green Beans.”
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They sold the vegetables using their regular names in one school, and sold them using the funny names in the second school – where vegetable sales there increased by 99 percent.
In the school where vegetables retained their normal names, sales actually went down by 16 percent.
What tricks to you have to entice your children to eat healthy grub?