The family way

The benefits of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day have been drummed into us all for years.

But it seems that many parents still aren't getting the message.

A new poll has found that more than a third of parents (34%) don't know about the five-a-day recommendation, and that five in six children aren't eating five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.

In fact, the survey by Notcutts Garden Centres, which is trying to encourage people to grow their own fruit and veg, found that 35% of parents say their children are eating just one or two portions a day.

Part of the problem may be that parents aren't eating enough fruit and vegetables themselves - only 18% of the mums and dads surveyed ate five a day themselves, and two thirds of parents said they were worried about passing on their own bad eating habits to their children.

Healthy eating consultant Lucy Thomas, who runs classes to encourage young children to eat fruit and vegetables (www.mangetoutkids.com), says: "Parents are crucial in getting children engaged with fruit and vegetables.

"If a parent wants their child to eat broccoli but won't touch the stuff themselves, success is unlikely."

Certainly, the research found that almost half of parents thought eating more fruit and vegetables themselves would encourage their kids to eat more greens, with two thirds saying they would like to be more adventurous with their own food choices.

"Parents should revisit foods that they wrote off as children - our taste buds develop over time and it can take as many as 10 or 15 tries before we get used to new tastes," explains Thomas.

"Adults may be surprised to find that they now enjoy fruit or vegetables they always thought they hated."

The Government advises both adults and children to eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day because they're rich in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, high in fibre and low in calories.

Studies have consistently shown that populations with a high intake of fruit and vegetables have a lower incidence of heart disease, some cancers and other health problems.

The recommended portion size for an adult is 80g, but the amount a child needs varies with age, body size and physical activity. As a rough guide, one portion is the amount they can fit in the palm of their hand.

Rick Wilson, director of Nutrition and Dietetics at King's College Hospital, London, and a spokesman for the British Dietetic Association, points out that official calculations suggest that if most people ate five-a-day, avoidable deaths in the UK would be reduced by 62,000.

He says: "It doesn't surprise me that a lot of people aren't eating five-a-day - getting everyone to do that is very difficult to achieve."

He points out that fresh, frozen, tinned or dried fruit all count as a five-a-day portion.

However, no matter how many glasses of fruit juice a child drinks, it only counts as a maximum of one portion because the roughage in the fruit has been lost, and its calories are very concentrated.

Potatoes don't count, as they are classed as starchy foods, but beans and pulses can count - although they can only make up a maximum of one portion a day.

Wilson suggests that if children have a glass of fruit juice with their breakfast, a sandwich with cucumber and/or tomatoes in it and a piece of fruit for lunch, a portion of vegetables in the evening with their hot meal, and another piece of fruit as a snack during the day, they've had their five-a-day.

He adds: "Eating five-a-day has lifelong benefits - the more time in your life that you're eating the right things, the better.

"Your eating habits are formed when you're young, so getting children used to the idea of eating more fruit and vegetables will be very helpful in their later life."

Lucy Thomas's tips for encouraging children to eat fruit and vegetables: :: Allow children to touch the produce in supermarkets, ask questions and point out their favourite colour. Choose something new to take home and look at.

:: Let them help as much as they can with preparing food - it might be messy, but it will help take away some of the uncertainty which might be associated with a particular fruit or vegetable.

:: Avoid the words 'eat' and 'try'. The meal table is one of the only areas in a child's life where they can assert some control over their parents by refusing to do something they are being asked to do. Use unique methods such as smelling, licking, and kissing food as a way around this.

:: Share mealtimes, so children are less likely to be distracted from their food.

:: Give children the chance to try some different fruit and vegetables that don't normally appear in your house, and don't be negative about the new food even if you don't like it yourself.

ASK THE EXPERT Q: "I'm eight months pregnant and keep forgetting where I've put things, and how to get to places. Is this really because I'm pregnant?"

A: Diane Farrar, a senior research midwife at the Bradford Institute for Health Research, led a recent study into how pregnancy affects memory.

She says: "It could be linked to your pregnancy.

"To be able to get to places or remember where we left our belongings we have to lay down memory for that location, orientate ourselves and retrieve the information later. This is known as spatial memory, and it's particularly associated with an area of the brain called the hippocampus.

"During pregnancy hormone levels change substantially, and some of these hormones can alter the structure and capability of nerves in the brain. One area of the brain that seems to be affected is the hippocampus.

"We studied the memory ability of women throughout pregnancy and after birth, and found that during the final six months of pregnancy and for at least three months following birth, spatial memory ability was reduced compared to a group of non-pregnant women. We also found that mood was lower in pregnancy but improved following birth.

"Our results suggest that women in the final six months of pregnancy and those who have recently given birth may have reduced spatial memory ability, which they may notice as mislaying things more often or having greater difficulty remembering their way to places."

Website of the week: www.cmoptions.org Child Maintenance Options, the information and support service about child maintenance, has just launched a Grandparents' Guide to Child Maintenance which you can download from its website. As nearly a third of separating couples with children turn to their parents for advice, the free guide includes sections explaining what child maintenance is and outlining the ways it can be arranged. The guide also covers common concerns such as how child maintenance can be calculated, what to do if a couple aren't on speaking terms and what to do if a parent stops paying.