A new book written by Bee Wilson is out to help parents make their kids love vegetables. Her book is called "First Bite" and it contains a lot of tips about how parents could encourage their kids to eat healthy food.
In an interview that Wilson had with Terry Gross from NPR's "Fresh Air", she said, "As parents, we have a far greater power than we think we have to form children's tastes."
The food author found the relationship of an individual's genetic background, environment, ability to remember things and feeding patterns at a very early age to food preferences. In an article published by NPR, she suggested that in order for parents to make their kids want to eat their veggies, they should start introducing it to them at their child's first bite. According to Wilson, parents have the ability to shape their child's preference when it comes to food because the palate pretty much already exists even before the child is born.
This is a good development in the subject of parenting and feeding a child only healthy food while they are growing up. It has been a common issue for parents to deal with, especially now that we are living in an era called "the junk food generation." This book is bringing hope to parents knowing that there is a chance for their kids to grow healthy by eating only healthy food without having to force them.
Wilson also explained further about taste, saying preference is actually a product of familiarity. She pointed out that even before a child is born, a mother's eating lifestyle already has an effect to a child's taste that later on, he or she would remember whatever it is that their mother has eaten during pregnancy. It is like "dejavu" whenever you eat.
There is also such a thing as the "flavor window," the ages between four and seven months old. It is the time when parents could easily introduce to their child the healthy lifestyle. But it is never too late to feed them right even if the "flavor window" has already passed.
"It's not that the flavor window then flips shut ... and we can never learn to love bitter green vegetables. Humans can learn to love new flavors at any age," Wilson added.
