Children may be encouraged to eat more fruit and vegetables if they take part in school-based gardening schemes, a new study suggests.

UK researchers followed the progress of almost 80 children aged nine and 10, 46 of whom were taking part in a school project to create a garden. The project lasted 12 weeks and as part of it, the children had to build a garden from scratch.

They also had lessons in related areas such as plant life and cooking.

The remaining children did not take part in the project.

The participants were asked about their eating habits before and after the project. They also had their body mass index (BMI) measured.

The researchers found that while neither group of children showed changes in their BMI, those taking part in the garden project were consuming 26% more fruit and vegetables by the end of the 12-week project.

"It seems that encouraging children to see the benefits of healthy eating through integrated school projects could help to entrench healthy eating behaviour. Perhaps by involving the whole class in the programme it helped to enmesh this as part of their daily school lives and ultimately in their lives overall," suggested Dr Michael Duncan of Coventry University.

He added that more research is needed to see if these habits ‘become lifelong'.

Details of these findings were presented at the recent annual conference of the British Psychological Society in Birmingham.