"If your friends jumped off a bridge would you do it too"? Has said every mother ever. Kids are great examples of the old adage "monkey see, monkey do". I think that is why parents and guardians have to be so concerned with peer pressure. But peer pressure doesn't have to be a bad thing.

LSU's Pennington Biomedical Research Center has uncovered an uncanny fact concerning kids and healthy food choices. That fact is this. When kids see other kids eating healthier, they tend to eat healthier too. Even if the kids they are observing are on television programs.

Dr. Amanda Staiano is a pediatric obesity researcher with the Pennington Research Center and she told the Louisiana Radio Network that their studies indicate that when preschool children observe other children on TV eating a certain kind of vegetable, they tend to eat more of that same vegetable without being prompted.

I’m excited to see if this research could be used to put more health promoting messages on TV. If parents are going to use screens, let’s figure out a way to send healthy messages to children.

Dr. Staiano said that one-third of Louisiana children don't eat vegetables at all. That's not good. But during the study many children did at least try a vegetable after seeing other kids eating them on a television screen.

Sometimes children take a few days to retain what they’ve seen and reproduce the action. So, in this case it took about a week before we saw changes in what the children were actually eating.

Staiano has this suggest for parents who have stubborn eaters in their home.

If there is an opportunity to use screens in a healthy way to show that eating vegetables can be fun and can taste good, I think parents should give it a try.

Seems like a sound idea. There have already been correlations drawn between what kids see on television and certain kinds of bad behavior. Why not use the same medium to promote good behavior.

I am pretty sure Steve Harvey has an extra half hour to add another television show to his schedule. It could be called Steve Harvey Makes Hilarious Faces and Observations While Kids Eat Vegetables.  I am pretty sure the lessons learned and moral values would be a lot better than letting the kids watch Teen Mom or Wife Swap

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