"Mum, can I have some more vegetables today?"
VAH-Study (Veggies At Home).
Variëteit en keuze mogelijkheden in groente.

The results from the latest Dutch Survey Young Children 2005/2006 shows that most children in the Netherlands do not meet the recommended daily amount of vegetable intake (Ocké et al., 2008). On average two to three year-olds consumed 38 gram of vegetables per day, which is less than one serving spoon per day. While the recommendation of the daily vegetable intake for this age group is 50 to 100 gram (one to two serving spoons of vegetables per day). The need to eat the daily recommended vegetables for children is very urgent. To encourage children to eat more vegetables we need some innovative new strategies, easily applicable in real life situations/practice. A possible strategy can be a freedom of choice: to provide children with a choice during vegetable eating. In this study we want to understand how children develop food habits and what strategies can play a role in promoting vegetables. We aim in this study at a younger age (two-five years). The VAH-study (Veggies At Home) is a randomized intervention study at home of 6 weeks with two conditions varying the degree of choice concerning vegetable eating. In the no-choice conditioning, the child will be randomly assigned to one of six vegetables. In the choice condition, the child will have a choice out of two vegetables during the meal, both vegetables can be served on the child’s plate. The same variety of vegetables will be used in both conditions. Twelve weekdays spread over 6 weeks (6x2) will be scheduled for the dinner sessions. Parents will receive their vegetable bags via the day care center per week. The bag will contain their vegetables for that week including tips and recipes (compare to the Dutch system ‘Odin groentepakket’). The variety of vegetables will be selected using the following criteria: 1. Most common eaten vegetables by 2-5 year-old Dutch children; 2. Vegetables fitting into a typical Dutch meal consisting potatoes, meat and vegetables. Depending on the family consistence families will be served 200 gram vegetables/adult, 100 gram vegetables/child (<4 years) and 150 gram vegetables/child (>4 years). A between subject design is used and each subject will be assigned to one condition only. The results from each group will be compared to each other to examine differences, and thus, effect of the choice-offering.

We expect a positive effect of choice-offering in children resulting in increase in vegetable intake at home.

We expect a difference in vegetable intake of 15 g after 10 exposures.

Total length 12 exposures (twice/week for 6 weeks).

The VAH-study (Veggies At Home) is a randomized intervention study at home of 6 weeks with two conditions varying the degree of choice concerning vegetable eating.

In the no-choice conditioning, the child will be randomly assigned to one of six vegetables.

In the choice condition, the child will have a choice out of two vegetables during the meal, both vegetables can be served on the child’s plate. The same variety of vegetables will be used in both conditions. Participants will receive during the study twice/week one or two vegetables depending on which group the child is participating. In total 12 times exposure. Six different kind of regularly eaten vegetables by 2-6 years old Dutch children will be used in both groups.