Nearly 10,000 children from Britain, France, Portugal and Greece were part of a study to understand how early breastfeeding practices affected fruit and vegetable intake in children 2-to 4-years old. Mothers were asked how long they breastfed and when they first introduced fruits and vegetables to their infants in the first 1- to 2-years of the child’s life.
The mothers were contacted again when the child was 2- to 4-years-old, revealing that the longer a baby was breastfed, the more likely they were to eat fruits and vegetables in preschool. Compared to those who were breastfed for three to six months, children who were never breastfed were about 20% less likely to eat at least one vegetable each day and 20% to 30% less likely to eat at least one fruit each day.
Why is it so? The researchers believe that when a baby is breastfed, they receive many different flavours from the breast milk that come from the mother’s diet. This, in turn, may increase the child’s acceptance of fruits and vegetables later in life.
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Image credit: Flickr user Kit.Macallister
