[Python] Change in date from string to datetime object when converting pandas dataframe to...

I have the foll. dataframe:

avi fi_id dates
2017-07-17 0.318844 zab_a_002 2017-07-17


When I convert it into a dictionary, I get this:

dict_avi = df.reset_index().to_dict('records')

[{'index': Timestamp('2017-07-17 00:00:00'), 'avi': 0.3188438263036763, 'fi_id': 'zab_a_002', 'dates': datetime.date(2017, 7, 17)}]


Why did the dates column become a datetime object? How can I retain it as a string?

Here are the dtypes:

avi float64
fi_id object
dates object
dtype: object

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