GB News presenter Stephen Dixon has revealed he became a vegetarian at the tender age of five after a childhood revelation in his family kitchen.
The host shared that the life-changing moment occurred when he witnessed his mother preparing a chicken for cooking.
Speaking on GB News, Stephen Dixon said: “This is nonsense. School dinners are a recipe for success for fussy eaters. Well I was a fussy eater because I was veggie from the age of five.
“I still am. I saw my mother stuffing a chicken and the penny dropped.”
Stephen Dixon revealed that he made the lifechanging decision at the age of five
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“That chicken was a chicken. And that was it, I thought no, I don’t want to eat that. And I still don’t eat meat to this day. Never looked back.”
The presenter was responding to research from the University of Bristol which suggests school dinners could encourage picky teenagers to eat a more varied and balanced diet.
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The study has sparked debate about the best approaches to helping young people develop healthier eating habits.
The University of Bristol-led research analysed data from more than 5,300 children, tracking their eating habits from pre-school age to 13 years old.
Published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, the findings reveal interesting patterns in adolescent eating behaviours.
Researchers examined information from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, also known as the “Children of the 90s” study.
The research team sought to understand how picky eating behaviour changes over time as children grow into teenagers.
Their analysis suggests that when children who were picky eaters got to choose their own food at school, they ate a wider variety compared with those who brought packed lunches from home.
The study found that picky eaters at age 13 were more likely than non-picky children to avoid meat, fish and fruit in their packed lunches.
The study found that picky eaters at age 13 were more likely than non-picky children to avoid meat, fish and fruit in their packed lunches
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However, researchers noted there was little evidence of these same picky eaters avoiding these foods when having school dinners.
“Our results suggest that some picky eating behaviours persist while others may be modified in adolescents when they are away from direct familial influence,” the study stated.
The researchers concluded that “family norms have a stronger influence over packed lunch content than over school dinner choices where the child has more autonomy and may be influenced by their peers.”