"Ugh! this is disgusting!!!"
Most parents have heard such words coming out of their children's mouths at the dinner table, and struggle with getting them to eat food that is both healthy and nutritious. Fussiness over food is not a new phenomenon in our daily lives, but research on it is a relatively new development; a project that calls for an interdisciplinary approach in the fields of nutrition, psychology and pedagogy, in addition to information technology.
By tackling fussiness it is possible to ensure a more healthy diet for children. It has been proven in various studies that a healthy diet in the first years of children's lives can be imperative staying healthy and will also benefit later in life.
Sigrún Þorsteinsdóttir, doctoral student at the University of Iceland's School of Education, has dedicated her research to training the taste buds of children and parents. The study is completely innovative and takes the form of a course for children and parents, involving a repeated introduction of all kinds of foods in a relatively short amount of time. Sigrún says that the main emphasis in the taste buds training is the choice of food, fussiness and well-being, among children and parents alike. Games and joy are the guiding light and no one is forced to taste anything. The main issue is to spark curiosity and have fun. Sigrún's supervisor in the doctoral thesis is Anna Sigríður Ólafsdóttir, professor of nutrition at the School of Education, who had the idea for the project.
"Most children and parents can use our methods but the real challenge is to get children to taste flavourful food products," says Sigrún. "The course itself is a simple and fun way to reduce food sensitivity with the emphasis on pleasure and diversity in the selection of food. The main focus is on varied diets, particularly increasing consumption of fruit and vegetables, which are the foods most lacking in children's diets in general."
Sigrún has a Master's degree in clinical child psychology from the University of Iceland and another Master's degree in health psychology from the University of Westminster.
The taste buds training thus connects in two ways to Sigrún's expertise; health psychology and dietary habits, but she has written cook books and distributed healthy recipies on social media and online with an emphasis on ecological ingredients.
Innovation - Developed an app to improve dietary habits
User-friendly service and digitalisation is an important factor in the new University Strategy UI26. Sigrún and her supervisor's approach in their study is partly influenced by this idea. They pursue information technology in their project by developing a special app to facilitate food registration for participants. Interesting innovation
"The app enables users to register their diet pictorially. As my supervisor, Anna Sigríður, and I talk relentlessly about food, children and their well-being, ideas like connected to these keep coming," says Sigrún and smiles.
Considering this project there are many things that jump out, especially the innovation, but also the latest results that are very positive and indicate that developing these methods further is the way to go to improve children's diets.
"The short version is that the course worked, the fussiness was reduced among the children and the effect continued for six months after the course which is not a given thing. There are also indications that pleasure from food was increased. The children furthermore accepted more types of foods after participating in the course, including all kinds of vegetables," says Sigrún. Three peer-reviewed scientific articles on the research results have already been published.
