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LET’S face it, fruit and vegetables have never
been an easy sell to children. A host of phrases
echo down the generations as frustrated
parents encourage their children to eat up
because it will “make them big and strong” or
“make their hair curl”.
Today the goal is the same, even if we
understand the health benefits better. Low
intake of fruit and vegetables is estimated to
cause about 19 per cent of gastrointestinal
cancers worldwide, about 31 per cent of
coronary heart disease and 11 per cent of
strokes. Eating more fruit and vegetables also
helps to displace junk foods that are high in
saturated fats, sugar or salt.
Yet if fruit and vegetables are so vital, why
are we so bad at convincing children to eat
them? And we are bad, as recent reports from
the US and UK reveal (see page 8). So it is
encouraging to see that one scheme is
apparently bucking the trend. A programme
called Food Dudes draws deeply on
psychological research and exploits three very
human foibles. The first and most interesting
is that repeatedly exposing somebody to small
tastes of a food increases their fondness for it.
This is such a well-known effect it seems
surprising that nobody has tried it out on a
large scale before. It is powerful too. As one
researcher put it: “On day one, no child in the
class will admit to liking red pepper, but after
two weeks their little hands are reaching for it.”
Two more-familiar human characteristics
also come into play – the habit youngsters
have of copying older children, and the desire
for reward. Schoolchildren receive small
rewards, such as stickers, every time they taste
a fruit or vegetable. They also watch a series of
short videos about four young superheroes –
the eponymous Food Dudes, whose powers
come from eating fruit and vegetables.
The food industry and particularly junk-
food companies are all too adept at employing
these last two traits. They have created a
culture in which children worry about having
the “right” food in their lunch boxes. Results so
far suggest that the Food Dudes have broken
that spell by enabling children to make long-
lasting changes to their eating habits.
The Irish government is implementing the
programme nationwide. In the UK, pilot trials
that are about to start should be helped by the
recent ban on junk-food advertising around
TV programmes aimed at 4 to 9-year-olds.
Food companies may rail against such
restrictions but they have to accept that their
aggressive marketing has helped to fuel
unhealthy eating, and driven the costs of
treating diet-related diseases sky-high.
Without change, that burden can only grow. ●
ONE of the sadder features of human nature is
some people’s compulsion to put others down,
either physically or mentally. Bullying can
leave a devastating mark on the lives of those
on the receiving end. The internet has created
a new place for bullies to operate, especially
among children, and it can be even nastier
here than it is in the playground (see page 26).
Online bullying ought to be easier to stamp
out than the verbal kind, because there will be
a log of any exchanges. In practice that doesn’t
help, because many bullies hide behind
anonymity. It’s easy to be anonymous on the
web, with a false email or chatroom account or
bogus profile on a social networking site.
Forcing people to reveal who they really are
would stop some intimidation, but this route,
followed by South Korea, creates a different
problem. Being anonymous is a real plus for
many people. Those who do not want to reveal
aspects of their lives, such as their sexual
orientation, can lead the life they choose as
anonymous web users. For whistle-blowers
or those fighting for freedom of expression,
such as Chinese bloggers, anonymity is
essential for them to operate at all. Balancing
children’s safety against adults’ freedom is far
from straightforward.
Teaching children about the risks they face
on the web is one vitally important defence.
But there are other avenues to explore, too,
such as requiring users of teen-oriented sites
to identify themselves, or to have parental
approval to post personal information. The
scale of the problem will only escalate as more
kids take their social lives online. It won’t be
easy, but we need to begin a serious search for
ways to protect them. ●
We have to stop bullies making kids’ lives hell
Eat your greens, dudeThere’s a sure-fire way to get children to enjoy fruit and vegetables
www.newscientist.com 21 July 2007 | NewScientist | 5
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