Dec 17th, 2009
If you gave your children some vegetables that kids these days do not like, and hate deserts which kids these days love?
Because children are rewarded deserts, and told ‘eat your veg, or no desert’ for eating their vegetables.
BUT
If you rewarded them with vegetables for eating their deserts, would they start to love vegetables, and tread deserts as more of a punishment than a reward?


9 Responses to “If From A Young Age, You Rewarded Kids With Vegetables For Eating The Desert, Would They Hate Deser, Love Veg?”
My son is a huge veggie eater – you should see the kid wolf down a plate of broccoli! – and not a big sweets eater. I think part of that is that he’s been exposed to a lot of fresh, good vegetables ever since he was an infant.
Think about it. When you’re at a good restaurant and they serve you a nice crisp salad and then vegetables on the side…don’t you always eat them? I know I do. But it’s because they actually taste fresh and flavorful – not overprocessed, overcooked, or leeched of all their nutrients. Heck, I won’t eat gray green beans, why would I expect my child to?
We also have a garden in the back. My son helps plant the seeds, weed the garden, water the garden, and helps pick the fruit and vegetables when they’re ready to go. I tell him he can eat fresh from the ground anything he wants. Sometimes when he’s playing, he’ll stop and walk over and go pick a green bean, pop it in his mouth, and then go keep playing. I don’t really care that it’s got a bit of dirt on it, but rather that he’s eating it.
Kids, often, take their cues from their parents. If you’re excited about your vegetables (or bath, or books, or bedtime, or whatever you want them to like) they often pick up on those cues and get excited about those things too. My mother taught me that trick when he was little and boy, 9 times out of 10 it works!
Kids love fruits and vegetables until they get a taste of the man made surgery crap. I have seen studies done that run along the lines your speaking. Kids tend to want what they can’t have. But when given the free choice of everything, they tend to favor the man made crap. You can’t limit your kids choices for life. They will binge on the forbidden fruit unless education has taking place first.
Possibly, but I doubt it.
I have trained my daughter to view fruit as a dessert/treat. I used to tell her that if she finished her veggies she could have fruit as a dessert. Now, she believes it.
My son, however, is 17 months. He hates peas, green beans, and anything green. I tried to give him a green M&M and he spit it out and was furious with me for giving it to him. He won’t eat green jello, or anything else that looks unappealing to him due to its color.
Hmm that is interesting! I think children like the sweetness of the deserts but the hype around it is also part of it as well. I know I always act like the vegetables are my favorite part of my meal and that seems to get them to go along with it.
No, but nice try. Most like desert because of the way it tastes. There really is no psychological game that can change that. However, if you feed them lots of veggies and no desert, they do not know what they are missing.
No matter how you put it dessert still tastes sweet and vegetables still taste bitter. Sweet is going to win out over bitter any day.
Probably not. Babies naturally like sweet tastes. In fact, breast milk is actually supposed to be slightly sweet!
Piss off and eat a carrot.
what kind of sick twisted person are you?!