Kathmandu, January 4
Television programmes featuring healthy foods will have a positive effect in children.
A recent research has revealed that TV programmes featuring healthy foods can influence children to make healthier food choices now and in adulthood.
Children who watched a child-oriented cooking show featuring healthy food were 2.7 times more likely to make a healthy food choice than those who watched a different episode of the same show featuring unhealthy food, said the study published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour.
A research was conducted among 125 children between 10 to 12 years of age at five schools in the Netherlands where the researchers asked the children to watch 10 minutes of a Dutch public television cooking programme designed for children, and then offered them a snack as a reward for participating. 
The findings revealed that the children who watched the healthy programme were far more likely to choose one of the healthy snack options — an apple or a few pieces of cucumber — than one of the unhealthy options — a handful of chips or a handful of salted mini-pretzels.
As the children grow older, though, they start to feel more responsible for their eating habits and can fall back on information they learned as children.
 

Hamro Doctor