Their experiment showed that children ate significantly more fruit and vegetables if they stayed at the table for just ten minutes longer on average – 30 minutes total. On average, they ate about 100 grams more fruit and vegetables. It represents one of the five recommended daily portions of fruit and vegetables and is about the size of a small apple or a small bell pepper. The results of the study were published in the US journal Jama Network Open.
“This result has practical importance for public health because an additional portion of fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of cardiometabolic diseases by 6 to 7 percent,” explains Jutta Mata, professor of health psychology at the University of Mannheim. “For this kind of effect, the table should have enough fruits and vegetables — bite-sized pieces are best,” adds the health psychologist.
50 pairs of parents and 50 children participated in the study. The average age of the children in the study was 8 years and the average age of the parents was 43 years. Equal number of boys and girls participate in it. Participants were served a typical German dinner with sliced bread, cold cuts and cheese, as well as bite-sized pieces of fruit and vegetables.
“Meal timing is one of the central elements of a family meal that parents can change to improve their children’s diet. We have already indicated this relationship in a meta-analysis of studies looking at the quality components of healthy meals. Family meals. In this new experimental study, we previously only able to prove correlation,” said Ralf Hartwig, director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
Studies also show that children do not eat more bread or colds as a result of longer family meals; They did not eat more sweets. The researchers hypothesized that bite-sized fruits and vegetables were easier to eat and thus more appealing.