Banning screens at meals and parents eating veg as an example are more likely to lead to children eating more veg, finds new report from Veg Power
Family mealtimes don’t necessarily translate into eating more veg, while banning phones and parental example can help children boost intake.
Those are some of the findings from a new report from dietary health alliance Veg Power, which sheds new light on how family mealtimes impact children’s fruit and veg consumption.
A key finding was that while families are sharing over five main meals per week, there was no correlation between the frequency of family mealtimes and the amount of vegetables a child eats on an average day.
“While we were initially surprised at the findings of this research - that the frequency of family meals did not correspond to increased veg consumption - when we dug a little deeper, it suggests that parents are prioritising harmony over health,” said Veg Power chief executive, Dan Parker.
“Therefore, any future interventions in this space needs to take this into consideration and rather than disrupting or diminishing the occasion they must have high potential to strengthen family bonds during meals.”
Other findings, which came from Veg Power’s annual survey of 3,000 parents and primary school aged children, included:
- 13 per cent of all the families surveyed – and one in four of those with a household income below £15,000 – do not own a table. Despite this, owning a table did not correlate with increased vegetable consumption.
- 24 per cent of parents ban screens at every mealtime, a move which leads to slightly more veg (2.5 handfuls) than those with screens during mealtimes everyday (2.3 handfuls).
- The more veg a parent claims to eat, the more likely their child ate over three handfuls of veg per day.
- While 80 per cent of parents say family mealtimes were ‘important’ or a ‘top priority’, those with highly fussy/picky or neurodiverse children were the least favourable towards family mealtimes, closely followed by those with lower household income.
- The primary barrier to family mealtimes were cited as ‘facts of life’ e.g. scheduling conflicts.
- ‘Fussiness’ had a large impact on veg consumption with 54 per cent of children who are “highly fussy” eating just 0 – 1 handfuls of veg per day.
Overall, Veg Power said its conclusions, made with the help of a partner taskforce, suggest all public health campaigns and interventions should focus on joint participation between parents and children, and adds to the family mealtime experience rather than jeopardising it.
“We know from past research that helping families to increase harmony at mealtimes and take the stress out of food can often go hand-in-hand with helping children to eat more vegetables,” said Dr Lucy Porter, a lecturer at UCL Centre for behaviour change.
“We were surprised to learn that eating meals together doesn’t necessarily translate into increased vegetable intake, but the important thing for us to do now is to understand more about what family mealtimes currently look like, what families want them to look like, and what challenges they are facing in achieving this.”
