Favorite and Disliked Vegetables in Elementary School Students

Abstract

　Vegetables contain vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. School age (6—12years-old) is the perfect time to build the body. Therefore, eating vegetables is important to school age children. Apart from that, it is also important that they like vegetables at this time. Otherwise, they may experience health problems, such as poor nutritional balance, obesity, and constipation. Therefore, for the purpose of "eliminating disliked vegetables for school age children", we researched the favorite vegetables and disliked vegetables in the upper grades (5th—6th grades), who are the representative of school age children. Sweet corn was chosen as their favorite vegetable. The main reason is that carbohydrates, an energy source, were preferred over vegetable nutrients. The children disliked vegetables, such as bell pepper, cauliflower, and eggplant. For them, the taste, smell, and texture were not appealing. The results are not so different from previous reports. As a result of statistical processing, the 5th and 6th graders had associated vegetable preference patterns. Additionally, it was suggested that there was a discrepancy between parents and children in disliking vegetables. Also, to make dry curry, they incorporated bell peppers, which the children dislike, to confirm the results obtained so far. It was provided as a school lunch and was highly evaluated by the elementary school students.