Mental Health

Coaxing a Man into Eat His Veggies is Harder than Convincing a Kid, Study Reveals

By Christine Hsu | Update Date: Apr 01, 2013 03:43 PM EDT

Trying to convince your children to finish their veggies may be hard, but a new survey reveals that persuading your husband to eat his broccoli and peas may be even harder.

British researchers found that men eat less fruit and vegetables than their children. The survey found that while pre-school children eat an average of 12 different types of fruit and vegetables each week, the average man only eats half of that.

Researchers found that the average man only eats 1.2 portions of fruit and vegetables a day.

The study involved mothers who were asked about the vegetable consumption in their households. Researchers found that while 85 percent of women in the survey reported that they regularly manage to coax their children into eating their vegetables, a large proportion of them admitted that the same could not be said for their other halves.

Furthermore, 48 percent of women surveyed admitted using sneaky tactics to trick their partners into eating more fruits and vegetables.

They survey reveals that some of the most popular tricks used to get people to eat their five a day is covering vegetables with cheese or cream, hiding them in soups or stews, blending them into smoothies or lying about the ingredients used in meals.

The survey sponsored by drinks manufacturer SaVse also revealed that cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, aubergine and mushrooms were among the vegetables men hated the most.

"Take chips (fries) out of the diet of many men and the reality is that there is too little vegetable content," said Guka Tavberidze, founder of SaVse, according to the Daily Mail.

"Eating vegetables is an essential part of a healthy, balanced diet and if men aren't prepared to tuck in, it's no surprise that their partners are resorting to stealth techniques," Tavberidze added.

In 2012, U.S. researchers suggested that men feel reluctant to eat vegetables because they believe eating fruits and vegetables could threaten their masculinity.  Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Louisiana State University, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Cornell University found that men, particularly those from western counties, tended to associated meat with masculinity and vegetables with being "weak and wimpy".  Furthermore, researchers found that men perceived meat eaters as more masculine than non-meat eaters, according to Medical Daily.

"To the strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American male, red meat is a strong, traditional, macho, bicep-flexing, All-American food," researcher wrote in the study published in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Soy is not. To eat it, they would have to give up a food they saw as strong and powerful like themselves for a food they saw as weak and wimpy."

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