If you want your children to eat more vegetables then reward them with little stickers. That is the findings of Remington et al. published ahead of print on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) website last week.
Children aged between 2-3 years old were given small amounts (~2.5g) of a vegetable they had rated as 4 on a scale 1-6 for 12 work days. Parents were instructed to either praise the children by giving them a sticker, give them verbal praise or a control group that gave no praise.
Children who were given the stickers increased the amount of the vegetable they ate and their rating of how much they liked it and this was still the case 3 months later.
The article is available from the AJCN website.