Brussels sprouts and broccoli tend to have a sour reputation among kids, but researchers at N.C. State University are working on a new change. With a goal of getting children to eat more fruits and vegetables, professors Suzie Goodell and Virginia Carraway-Stage have designed a method to determine preschoolers’ liking of popular produce.
Hopefully, this method can help improve nutrition education programs and result in healthier eating for young children.
During testing, trained research assistants showed 20 different fruit and vegetable pictures to preschoolers ages 3 to 5. The child was prompted to choose one of five options at the bottom of the image that ranged from “super yummy” to “super yucky” to show how much they liked it.
The researchers refined their method a few times, running into roadblocks, such as photos that didn’t convey what they were supposed to, but after collecting and analyzing data, the method was determined to be effective.
More than 50 N.C. State students helped with the project with tasks from data collection to photo analysis.
For more information on the project or to access the fruit and vegetable likeness tool, contact Dr. Suzie Goodell at suzie_goodell@ncsu.edu.
