Why Playing With Food Can Broaden Tastes For The Future

A childs refusal to try new foods can cause stress and worry in even the most calm adults. MaggieCharlesworthlooks at how making food fun, or just trying a different tactic can help.

When you were small did you ever get told off for playing with your food? It’s easy to see why frazzled parents might not appreciate aeroplane or dive-bombing noises at the table, but research has shown that play with real food — at least before actual mealtimes — could help children to increase the number of foods they are willing to try.

Last year, a small study by researchers from De Montford University in Leicester found that playing with real food increased the number of fruits and vegetables children were later willing to eat. 1 Sixty-two three- to four-year-olds were divided into three groups: one played with real food (five types of fruit and vegetables); a second group played with pictures of the same fruits and vegetables; and a control group played a non-food game. Afterwards, it was found that the children in the group who had played with real food were later more likely to eat the foods they had played with, and were also more likely to try another three types of fruits or vegetables they had not played with.

In Helping Children Develop a Positive Relationship with Food: A Practical Guide for Early Years Professionals, Jo Cormack, a doctoral researcher and registered counsellor who specialises in child feeding, rejects many of the ways that adults try to get children to eat. Saying a food is healthy, bribing with pudding, cajoling for one more bite, these — among a long list of other usual tactics employed by desperate parents and carers — encourage a child to eat to please somebody else rather than to satisfy their own appetite; something Cormack claims can affect later relationships with food. Regular exposure to new foods is recommended, however, and play is an opportunistic way to do this.

Removing fear