Story about magical vegetables promotes healthier eating behaviour in preschool children

An international team of psychologists shows how reading a story to children still influences their preference for fruit and vegetables after one to two weeks

In a study, an international team led by retired Professor Werner Sommer from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin was able to show that children's preference for fruit and vegetables was influenced by being read a story. After hearing a fairy-tale story about the magical powers of vegetables, the children increased their consumption of healthy foods for one to two weeks.

Good nutrition is particularly important in childhood because it can have a formative effect on the rest of a child's life. How the eating behaviour of kindergarten children can be influenced towards healthy foods was investigated in two studies by a working group of researchers from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the University of Münster and the University of Nairobi. The studies were inspired by an experiment conducted in 1938 by social psychologist Karl Duncker (1903 - 1940), which showed that a simple story can change children's taste preferences over several days.

The participants in each of the two studies were around 80 preschool children aged four to six in Kenyan kindergartens. Over a period of three to four weeks, the children were offered a daily changing small selection of healthy or less healthy snacks, from which they were allowed to choose one. The healthy snacks in the first study were different types of fruit and in the second study pieces of vegetables that could be eaten raw (e.g. carrots, cucumbers); the less healthy snacks were biscuits, cakes or sweets.

Story about magical vegetables that give powers

At the beginning of the second study week, the carers told the children a story. It is about how a town famous for its bright colours lost all its colour overnight, but regained it thanks to the heroes of the story - children and listeners alike. In separate groups, the story was told in one of two variations. One version was that the painter, who was responsible for refreshing the colours in the town every night, had eaten too much unhealthy food and had fallen ill. However, with the help of magical vegetables brought to him by our heroes, he was able to recover quickly and resume his work.

In the second variant - the control condition - the story had a similar structure, but the loss of colour was due to the poor quality of the paints used; in this variant, the heroes of the story brought the painter high-quality paints, with which he was able to work successfully again.

Promising opportunity to positively influence eating preferences

After the day on which the children had heard one of the two stories, they were offered the daily snack selection for a further two to three weeks. In the week before the stories were told, the children predominantly chose the less healthy option. Immediately after hearing the story about the magical vegetables, however, the preferences reversed in favour of the healthy choice (fruit or vegetables). Although this effect gradually diminished, it was detectable for about one to two weeks. In contrast, the story about the poor quality colours - the control condition of the study - had no effect on the children's choice of snack.

"With a single story sequence of only about 20 minutes, we achieved a surprisingly strong change from a preference for unhealthy snacks to a preference for healthy fruits or vegetables. We think this is a promising prospect for improving children's eating habits," says study leader Werner Sommer.

The researchers suspect that the stories have a suggestive effect on the children's internal value system, which controls their behavioural decisions, i.e. their choice of food. They assume that children's preference for healthy foods can be influenced particularly effectively in the long term if stories such as the magic vegetables are read aloud in combination with other suitable measures. For example, one could work with several different stories about specific foods and combine them with corresponding preparation activities and a real meal.

Further information

Studie: Zahedi, A., Katembu, S., Sind, S. M., Sommer, U., Kimamo, C., & Sommer, W. (2025). The impact of a fairytale-like story on the food choices of preschool children. APPETITE, 206, 107839. doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2024.107839

Contact

Prof. Dr. i.R. Werner Sommer
Institut für Psychologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

werner.sommer(at)cms.hu-berlin.de

Press release of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin 30.01.2025.