Fisher J, Birch L, et al. Maternal influences on the tradeoff between milk and soft drinks in young girls' diets. But an investigation by a school foodservice company found today's parents are much more flexible than they used to be and let children make many choices themselves. This may make for greater harmony, but often results in very poor choices being made, leading no doubt to the imprinting of poor eating habits. There were some other findings of great interest related to gender.
Girls appear to eat twice as many fruits and vegetables as boys.
Boys consume three times more meat and starchy foods. Girls or young women spend half as much on food as boys and young men. This reflects boys and young men wanting tasty, high energy foods and social ambience, eating an average of 3.8 items for lunch. Girls on the other hand average 2.5 items for lunch and want efficient use of time. Obviously these findings are of great importance in devising school lunches, but also in understanding how young people's food habits might be swayed to more nutritionally advantageous choices.