Gardening Influences Tots' Views on Veggies

[Desire' Stapley]

New section on HSMRS:
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Farm to School and School Gardening section.
http://schoolmeals.nal.usda.gov/Resource/farmtoschool.htm

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Also if you haven't seen USDA's : October is Children's Health Month!
Discover the Rewards!


>From the President's Task Force on Environmental Health Risks and Safety

Risks to Children: Celebrate Children's Health Month by learning how to keep
your kids healthy and safe. Website includes resource links on child health
topics, as well as an online and print-ready calendar of child health and
safety tips for October 2002.

http://www.childrenshealth.gov/

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Gardening Influences Tots' Views on Veggies
Tue Oct 22,10:20 AM ET
By Alison McCook
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Health) - Let preschoolers get their hands dirty in a
garden, and you might see a shift in their attitudes toward vegetables, new
study findings suggest.
Researchers at Texas A&M University in College Station discovered that when
4- and 5-year-olds spent around 30 minutes per week planting and tending to
a garden, they became less likely to refuse vegetables when offered them.
The children also increased their preference for green beans over other
vegetables after spending 8 weeks in a garden that included green beans.
Young children often think that food comes from a grocery store, study
author Saundra G. Lorenz told Reuters Health. Letting them work in a garden
and watch edible things grow allows them to "make a connection to their food
source," Lorenz said, perhaps rendering it more appealing.
Beyond seeing where vegetables come from, working in a garden lets kids
become attached to the foods, the researcher added, which may render the
vegetables they grew themselves even more appealing than those they buy.
"The hope is then that they would be more likely to consume food they grew,"
Lorenz noted.
Lorenz and her colleagues presented their findings here on Monday at the
85th Annual Meeting of the American Dietetic Association. The ADA is a
professional organization representing the nation's licensed nutritionists
and dietitians.
During the study, the researchers brought 22 children, age 4 and 5 years, to
gardening plots for 30 minutes per week for 8 weeks. The children planted
green beans, bell peppers, radishes and cherry tomatoes. After planting the
vegetables, the children watered the gardens each week, weeded the land and
got involved in composting.
In an interview with Reuters Health, Lorenz said that she was surprised to
find that most children said they liked the taste of vegetables they were
fed even before gardening began. The children tasted the four types they
later planted plus two others that were not included in the gardens.
However, the researcher noted that after spending 8 weeks gardening, the
children became less likely to refuse the four types of vegetables they had
grown, and also ranked green beans higher in order of preference than they
had at the beginning of the study.
Bringing young children to gardens may be an easy way to get them to like
vegetables, and they may also become more willing to try unfamiliar types,
Lorenz noted. Involving parents in the process--perhaps by starting a garden
at home--may help kids like vegetables even more, she suggested.
Furthermore, the gardens used in the current study were quite small, she
said, so even schools in an urban environment can use the activity to foster
their young students' appreciation for vegetables.


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Desiré H Stapley, RD, LD
Technical Information Specialist
Food and Nutrition Information Center
National Agricultural Library
10301 Baltimore Ave, Rm 105
Beltsville, MD 20705
301-504-6366
dstapley at nal.usda.gov
http://schoolmeals.nal.usda.gov

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