Today, the White House released a great video about First Lady Michelle Obama's now-famous garden. It features a White House chef, the First Lady, and the Washington, D.C. children who helped plant the garden.

Take a look:

Watching the video, I was excited to see how enthusiastic the children were about gardening and producing fresh vegetables (when do you see children excited about vegetables, I ask you?).

Think about it: what if each school had a garden - and that the veggies they helped grow were incorporated into school meals? What would that do to excite children about fresh food?

So, I took a look. What I found makes sense: when children help to grow vegetables, they're more likely to eat them. Rather than having kids make passive choices in their food, they instead can take active roles, helping them to become proud about the food they're eating.

Take this study by Saint Louis University, for instance. Researchers interviewed 1,600 parents of preschool-aged children. They found that "preschool children who were almost always served homegrown fruits and vegetables were more than twice as likely to eat five servings a day than those who rarely or never ate homegrown produce."

The study's author, Debra Haire-Joshu, had this to add:

"When children are involved with growing and cooking food, it improves their diet. Students at schools with gardens learn about math and science and they also eat more fruits and vegetables. Kids eat healthier and they know more about eating healthy. It's a winning and low-cost strategy to improve the nutrition of our children at a time when the pediatric obesity is an epidemic problem."

What do you think? Do you have a garden at home? Do you find that your children are more likely to eat vegetables this way? Is this something we should try in our schools? Let us know!