How Can I Get My Child to Eat More Vegetables?

Many parents struggle to get their kids to eat more vegetables—but it’s totally possible with the right approach. By modeling healthy habits, making veggies fun, and offering them often without pressure, children can learn to enjoy them at their own pace. These tips help make mealtimes more relaxed, playful, and positive—for everyone at the table.

How to Encourage Kids to Eat More Veggies Without the Pressure

Getting children to enjoy vegetables is a common challenge, but with patience and consistency, it’s achievable. The key is role modeling healthy eating, offering vegetables regularly without pressure, and making them fun through creative presentation and play. Avoid bribing or hiding veggies—kids need to build trust and awareness around food. These strategies help foster a lifelong positive relationship with vegetables in a calm, supportive way.

View Full Video Transcript Below

Looking for more ways to make vegetables a regular—and welcome—part of your child’s diet? Explore these common questions and expert-backed strategies to help your picky eater become a veggie lover.

How Many Times Should I Offer a Vegetable Before My Child Will Try It?

It can take at least 18 exposures before a child is willing to try a new vegetable. Repeated, pressure-free exposure builds familiarity and comfort. Serve vegetables regularly at meals and snacks, even if your child initially refuses them. Over time, simply seeing, smelling, and touching vegetables helps reduce fear and increases the likelihood of tasting them.

Is It OK to Bribe My Child With Dessert to Eat Vegetables?

Bribing with dessert can create a negative association, making vegetables feel like punishment and sweets the reward. This reinforces the idea that vegetables are undesirable. Instead, offer veggies without pressure and treat all foods neutrally. When children enjoy vegetables in a low-pressure setting, they’re more likely to eat them willingly over time.

What If My Child Never Wants to Eat Vegetables?

If your child consistently avoids vegetables, keep offering them in different ways—roasted, raw, in soups, or as part of mixed dishes. Some kids may accept only one or two at first, and that’s okay. If avoidance is extreme or persistent, consider reaching out to a pediatrician or dietitian. Feeding challenges are usually temporary but may need extra support in rare cases.

For more information, check out these popular topics:

• Supporting Children and Teens With Chronic Illness
• Talking to Kids and Teens About Consent
• Shedding a New Light on Conflicts Between Parents and Children

Full Video Transcript

So I have to tell you, this is by far hands down the most the number one question that I get in my practice, how can I get my child to eat more vegetables? It's a multifaceted answer. So let's get into it.

When you are looking at trying to increase the amount of vegetables your child eats, the most important thing that you have to do is role model. We want to be role models for our children. Children actually tend to do what they see and not what you tell them as you'll find out. So role model, the behavior you want to see and make sure your plate is full of vegetables on a regular basis.

You want to make sure as well when you have a child that's a little hesitant to try vegetables, you still continue to offer them at meal times, at snack times, we want them to be a regular part of the diet because if vegetables disappear from the plate and from meals, then your child actually has no opportunity to try and get more vegetables.

It can take minimally about 18 different times for a child to get comfortable with the new food or vegetable. It's actually normal for children to be a bit hesitant to try new things. So don't stress about it. Just keep offering that food and I encourage you to try and offer it in different formats. Roasted broccoli, steamed broccoli, even stir fry broccoli. They all have a bit of a different taste.

It's very important that we don't bribe our children to eat vegetables. I know it's tempting. You may feel like, well, if you have your broccoli, you can have dessert, but that actually creates a really bad power balance where broccoli is seen as bad and dessert is seen as good. And we don't want to think of vegetables as a yucky food that we have to eat. We want children to understand and enjoy eating these nutritional powerhouses.

Dessert is great, but we don't want it to make it something that children yearn after. You know, the thing that parents miss the most about trying vegetables with kids is keeping it fun. I actually suggest using fun tools. Younger children can use utensils with funny shapes and characters on them because that can actually make food fun and things like cookie cutters or food puncher's can change the shape of vegetables and just make them a little bit more interesting and make them a discussion point.

You want to allow your child to experiment with vegetables in a non-eating setting. So I actually suggest doing crafts with vegetables at art time. Who doesn't want to paint with green peas or see what color beets make on a piece of paper? Getting creative with vegetables: You can even make a stamp out of potatoes and stamp a paper or a letter to your grandparents.

It can actually make vegetables interesting and it can allow the child to interact with a vegetable without having to have them consume it. Who doesn't love green bean ears or broccoli antlers or finding out how who has a longer carrot nose?

Make sure that you're having fun with vegetables at mealtimes and that it isn't a chore or something that children are required to eat. If vegetables are offered at a meal, allow that child to sense the vegetables and see them. Sometimes they may wish to try them, but other times they may not want to. And that's OK. The most important thing is to continue to offer vegetables regularly at meal times and snack time.

Don't forget about snacks. Parents often forget vegetables are a great option for snacks. An important point to remember when you're trying to encourage your child to have more vegetables is not to hide them. Your children need to be aware of what they're eating and what they're choosing to put in their bodies.

So I do suggest including vegetables in many different ways, different meals on their own, even as snacks, but pureeing broccoli into everything is hiding it, is really defeating the purpose. Your child will not realize they're actually trying broccoli or a vegetable. They're not going to get to experience vegetables and perhaps grow to love them. And it can be something that could break trust if your child doesn't feel like the food that you're offering them is really the food that they're expecting.

So when you're trying to encourage your child to have more vegetables, you may wonder how long is this going to go on? You know, it can take up to 18 exposures for children to just become comfortable and interested enough to put a vegetable into their mouth. So certainly we want to make sure that we're offering vegetables, you know, on their own, different styles of vegetables, roasted, baked, stir fries, also including them in mixed meals like stews and soups, and allowing your child to have access to vegetables regularly.

Now, a question I get is, well, what if my child really never wants to try the vegetables? Maybe they only have one or two vegetables that they're comfortable eating and a lot of time has passed. And you as a parent may be getting concerned. If you notice that your child's food selection is diminishing or if you notice that really you're very much struggling with having your child try any new foods or their vegetable intake is extremely low or none, that might be something that is time to get some extra support with.

It can never hurt to reach out to your child's doctor or registered dietitian who works with children to get some extra support in seeing what may be some other problems surrounding this issue. In terms of children who never eat vegetables, these types of sort of feeding disorders are rare.

So we don't expect most typically developing children to run into this issue. Your child will eventually land on some vegetables that they enjoy eating and they're willing to try. And the more that you offer them, remember that and the more that you try some of these new things on a regular basis, the more likely your child is to actually eat vegetables. If we don't see vegetables, they're definitely out of sight, out of mind.