F.O.M.C. (Fear of Missing Carrots)

(WSJ illustration)

Rewarding children for eating healthy foods rarely results in long-lasting changes to behavior. Try reframing the subject.

Many parents use rewards to get children to do things they would otherwise resist, such as eating healthy foods. This approach might work in the short term, but over time it may cause children to resist fruits and vegetables even more, because they will view eating those foods only as means to a reward.

...A series of studies found that when children were told that they could have only a limited amount of a certain food, such as carrots, the kids not only preferred carrots to a more bountiful snack option but ate more carrots and enjoyed them more than kids who chose carrots over a snack in equal supply.

Studies with young children are tricky, so there could be many reasons behind these behaviors, but it seems that the fear of missing out is one important driver that gets us all to partake of items that are in short supply.

The fear of scarcity and its cousin, the fear of missing out, are primal impulses. They cause us to hoard, buy tickets to farewell concerts, and travel great distances to see solar eclipses.

When used creatively, they can instill healthy habits in children. Science proves what smart grandmothers have always known.