ST. LOUIS, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- If parents eat more fruits and vegetables, so do their children, and if parents eat high fat snacks or soft drinks, children will too, U.S. researchers said.
Debra Haire-Joshu of the Washington University in St. Louis and colleagues conducted a five-year study in rural Missouri involving 1,306 parents and children between the ages of 2 and 5 participating in Parents As Teachers, a national parent education program. One group enrolled in the High 5 for Kids program, and the other group received standard visits from Parents as Teachers.
In the High 5 for Kids group, parents completed a food questionnaire, received nutrition materials and four visits from parent educators at their homes who provided examples of parent-child activities designed around nutrition.
The study, published in the journal Preventive Medicine, found that although the High 5 for Kids program was effective in improving fruit and vegetable intake in children of normal weight, overweight children did not eat more of these foods.
"Overweight children have already been exposed to salty, sweet foods and learned to like them," Haire-Joshu said in a statement. "To keep a child from becoming overweight, parents need to expose them early to a variety of healthy foods and offer the foods many times."
