Over and over, virtually inescapably, the "food police" exhort us to keep so-called junk food away from children in order to steer them toward healthy dietary habits. Recent research findings, however, suggest that attempts at policing youngsters' food choices may boomerang.
The June 1999 issue of The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition includes a report on two experiments conducted by J. O. Fisher and L. L. Birch, both of The Pennsylvania State University. The research-ers examined how children aged 3-5 years responded to restriction of the availability to them of foods they preferred.
