Why children won’t eat vegetables

healthydailymail.com Spinach, cabbage, leek and lettuce… and broccoli too – the Demon Vegetables of Leaf Street; ask any two-year-old you know.

But why?

Why do green leafy veg arouse such suspicion in the minds of our little ones, who seem to have an intuitive aversion to anything directly resembling a plant?

The experts  have the answer.

Dr Annie E Wertz and Dr Karen Wynn, both psychologists at Yale University, believe that evolution has biologically programmed children to be wary of plant-life, which may contain potentially hazardous toxins. It’s the body’s defence mechanism against potential injury.

This hypothesis is based on a study that investigated how children aged eighteen-months to eight years reacted to a variety of objects placed in front of them. Six objects were placed in front of each child and researchers timed how long it took for the participants to grasp the respective objects.

And the result? Well, children were way more inclined to grasp non-plant items than any flora placed before them.

It took an average of 3.4 seconds for a child to reach out for shells, 4.6 seconds for lamps and spoons but almost 10 seconds (twice as long!) for parsley and basil plants. And the same slow response applied to ‘pretend’ plants.

Doctors Wertz and Wynn say that children aren’t actively afraid of plants – although I might debate this point because my eldest daughter displayed a strange fear of bushes (and Christmas trees?) for a good two years of her young life; their disfavour is a natural inclination rather than misbehaviour.

In other words; give ‘em a break (but don’t let up on efforts to get them eating veg! – inclinations can be broken!)

How did/do your children react to green veg?