Feed your children rusks or 'beige' food when they're babies and you could be programming them to prefer chips and crisps when they grow up. That's the conclusion of a new study by psychologists at Birmingham University. Researchers there found that children notice very early on the colour of the food that they like. This then predisposes them to like similar coloured food when they grow up.

Researchers believe that this predisposition, which activates at around 18 months, is part of an ancient survival skill that humans evolved. This was devised to protect children at an age when they are first able to wander around and select their own food.

Dr Gillian Harris, a clinical psychologist at the University, says; 'I would recommend that, where possible, parents give their children the same food that they are eating, provided it is a balanced diet containing fruit and vegetables, to introduce them to new colours, textures and shapes...If you eat brussels sprouts at the age of two, you are likely to be eating them when you are 40.'

• Related Section: Food & Nutrition
  
  
• Ask Our Expert: Changing a child's junk food diet

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