Does Offering a Choice of Vegetables Affect Children's Consumption?

Freedom of choice provides autonomy and a feeling of control. To determine whether offering a choice of vegetables increases intake in young children (age range, 4–6 years), researchers in the Netherlands randomized 303 parent–child pairs to one of three conditions in a restaurant setting: the no-choice condition, in which the child was served one of two vegetables; the premeal-choice condition, in which the child chose one of two vegetables before the meal; and the at-meal-choice condition, in which the child was served two vegetables on the plate.

Before the experiment, children ranked eight common vegetables by preference; each child was served the vegetables that he or she ranked third and fourth during the experiment. The meat, starch, …