The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

Children often adopt their mothers' eating habits

Children between the ages of XNUMX and XNUMX pay close attention to what they eat: they essentially imitate both their mothers' positive and negative eating behaviors and have a fairly good knowledge of food and healthy eating. However, this does not prevent them from enforcing their preferences and eating fewer vegetables than their mothers would like. They also declare McDonalds - in contrast to their mothers - to be their favorite restaurant.

According to the Institute for Youth Research (IJF) on behalf of ZMP and CMA, only one in ten children does not have breakfast before leaving the house. Everyone else takes an average of 15 minutes for breakfast. For school, most children get a snack or other food from their mothers. For the main meals at home, the children mainly eat noodles, rice or potatoes, with meat and vegetables being included in only a third of the cases.

Overweight children eat more high-fat foods

Overweight children have different eating habits than their normal weight peers, they eat more high-fat foods and drink sugary drinks such as cola and energy drinks more often. On the other hand, they save on high-fiber food such as muesli, fruit, salad and vegetables and tend to do without mineral water. Children like to eat sweets regardless of their body weight.

What is striking about overweight children is that most of them make their own snacks during the day, without parental control. The more children choose their own snacks, the more likely they are to be overweight. According to the Consumer Ministry, around ten to 20 percent of all children and young people in Germany are overweight. When mothers can decide what their children eat between meals, 25 percent of them prefer fruit, 22 percent milk slices and 15 percent bread rolls or yoghurt.

Source: Bonn [ZmP]