Background: Children receive an abundance of messages and information about fruits and vegetables and why they should consume them.  Studies involving school aged children ( >5 years) have reported that positive and negative outcome messages can influence a child’s consumption of F&V’s with positive outcome messages having the most significant mediating effect.  Similar studies are limited for preschool aged (< 5 years) children.  The current study was designed to explore what messages preschool children hear and how these messages relate to fruit and vegetable knowledge, preference, and consumption. 

Methods: School lunch-time F&V consumption of pre-school children (n=201) was recorded over five days.  Children (n=192) were individually interviewed about their knowledge, preference, and perceptions of fruits and vegetables.  Messages about F&V were operationalized into Social Cognitive Theory constructs to assist in behavior explanation.  Pearson’s correlation and one-way ANOVA were used for analysis. 

Results: Preschool children convey positive outcome expectancies (POE), negative outcome expectancies (NOE), and prompts most frequently when describing F&V’s.  Knowledge was positively correlated to prompts, POE and NOE. Child preference (likes) was negatively correlated to NOE.  Dislikes were positively correlated to NOE.  Differences were observed between genders.  Boys received negative reinforcement more than girls.  Significant differences were observed for socioeconomic status and race. 

Discussion: How parents, teachers, and nutrition advocates convey information about F&V’s can have an influence on child perceptions and preference.  Providing appropriate messages early in the developmental years of a child’s life can play dividends on future health outcomes.  However, a comprehensive evaluation of the population may be necessary to understand the most effective type of communication for participants.