A new study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine finds that children as young as 2 form dietary preferences based on their parents' food choices, Reuters reports. Researchers examined young children's food and beverage selections by asking 120 children ages 2 to 6 to select items from a miniature grocery store, which included 47 types of food and beverages classified as healthy or unhealthy. They also surveyed the children's parents about how often they purchased specific foods and beverages. All parents reported taking their children on trips to the grocery store. The researchers found that nearly 71 percent of children purchased unhealthy foods such as candy, potato chips and soda. Nearly 11 percent of children had shopping carts containing mostly healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grain cereals and breads. On average, children in the group with the least healthy choices bought the same number of healthy and unhealthy items, but those in the group with the healthiest choices bough five times as many healthy items as unhealthy ones. Parents' self-described food purchases significantly predicted the healthfulness of children's food choices. The authors concluded that "children begin to assimilate and mimic their parents' food choices at a very young age, even before they are able to fully appreciate the implications of these choices." Given their findings, the researchers stress that the grocery store is an important classroom where parents can instill healthy food purchasing habits even for young children (Reuters/Yahoo! News, 11/4/08; Sutherland, et al., Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, November 2008 [subscription required]).