Forbidden Cookies Taste Sweeter - Or So Kids Think

Posting Date: 07/20/1999

If you tell your kids not to eat cookies, guess where they?re going to head? Right - the cookie jar.

I?ve been trying to get this idea across for years: if you order someone not to do something, they?re going to do it. Now there?s a study that supports my opinion.

Researchers at Penn State University say restricting a child?s access to certain foods ? particularly snacks high in fat and sugar ? just increases their desire to consume the forbidden fruit.

In an experiment with boys and girls between the ages of three and six, researchers found the children showed a preference for a snack food that was withheld from them for a five-week period. Prior to the test, the children were no more interested in that food than in another, very similar, snack.

Once the snack food was restricted, the children?s attention became focused on it, they talked more about it and attempted to grab the cookie jar containing it, the researchers report.

Here?s something else that was discovered. The children most interested in the hidden snack had mothers who restricted them from certain foods at home. This was particularly true for heavier children.

In homes where restrictions are in effect continuously, the children show an even greater desire for the hard-to-get food, the researchers say. And if children can see the food, but not reach it, they will become focused on trying to get and eat the banned food.

The bottom line is that restricting access to food only results in that food being more desirable.

This is also true for adults. Tell someone they shouldn?t eat fatty hamburgers, and that?s exactly what they?ll want at their next meal.

It?s like I?ve been saying, if you tell someone not to do something, they?re going to do it. It?s human nature.

Am J Clin Nutr 69: 1264-1272 (June 1999)

Email this page  Printer Friendly Bookmark this page