The child exclaims in amazement: ‘He's actually eating that radish!’ when the school garden teacher in Amsterdam-Zuidoost pulls a radish from the ground and puts it in his mouth. The other children hesitate, but then most of them follow the teacher's example and the children find that their self-harvested school garden salad does not need any dressing, because it is already really tasty!

This is just one observation from the ProefGroen (‘Taste Green’/‘Test Green’) study by VU University Amsterdam on how a school garden affects consumption of vegetables by children in deprived areas of Amsterdam. This kind of study is vital, because just one percent of Dutch children aged four and above eat sufficient amounts of vegetables, according to figures from the Dutch National Food Consumption Survey. What's more, one in eight children in the Netherlands are overweight or obese and in big cities such as Amsterdam this is actually one in five children. Obesity forms a typical urban problem in the rest of Europe, too, and occurs most frequently in deprived neighbourhoods. The lower the income and education levels, the greater the chance of obesity and other health problems. In Amsterdam, poor residents enjoy an average of fifteen fewer years of good health than their fellow urban residents with higher incomes. These differences are caused in part by different eating habits. Scientific literature shows that healthy nutrition reduces the chance of many diseases: less obesity, cardio-vascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, joint problems, depression, dementia and some forms of cancer. This is why people are advised to eat lots of fruit and vegetables. Over the last ten years, however, food prices in these food groups have risen by 40 percent, in contrast to a strong drop in the price of sweet and fatty foods. Hence it is not surprising that families having to cope on a minimum wage or even lower also have less money to buy healthy food for their children.

Those who eat insufficient vegetables and fruit as a child have a greater probability of less healthy eating patterns as an adult, too. Making lasting changes in nutritional behaviour is complex. An individual's diet is influenced by a wide range of factors such as income, education, culture, taste preferences, upbringing, age and sex.