Food choice: how to assess attitudes of pre‐adolescent children

Abstract

It is well known that the foundations for food choice are laid down in childhood. Poor dietary habits learned in childhood may persist into adult life. The dietary awareness of children is subject to a range of complex interacting forces, for example, peer group pressure, social factors and television advertising. Many investigators have developed innovative methodologies to record these parameters. Reviews, therefore, the methodological issues of studies which have attempted to elicit pre‐adolescent attitudes, knowledge and beliefs in food. Finally, makes recommendations about methodological issues that should be considered when studying pre‐adolescent children’s food choice.

A tool for assessing healthy food knowledge in 5–6-year-old Australian children

“…If the child asked whether he/she had placed the food in the correct category, the researcher explained that they could not talk about the answers until they had finished looking at all the photos. The HFKA took 5-10 min to complete with each child, which is a suitable length of time for children of this age group (11) .…”

“…The child was then asked to say whether they thought the food was healthy or unhealthy and then to place the photo of the food next to the green tick if they thought it was healthy, the red tick if they thought the food was unhealthy or against the blue question mark if they were unable to identify the food or the answer. The option of question mark was provided to minimise errors that may arise from the child guessing the correct answer (11) . If the child changed his/her mind about his/her answers during the course of the activity, he/she was allowed to change the answers, provided these had not been discussed during the course of the activity.…”

“…Questionnaires and interviews used with older children are not suited to the cognitive development of young children. However, the technique of using pictures has been shown in previous studies to maintain young children's interest and motivation and is appropriate for their level of cognitive development (11,12) . Therefore, the aim of the present study was to develop a photo-based activity, called the Healthy Food Knowledge Activity (HFKA), which could be used to assess the nutrition knowledge of young children.…”

“…There is currently no consensus on a valid and reliable tool that can be used to measure young children's nutrition knowledge (11) . Questionnaires and interviews used with older children are not suited to the cognitive development of young children.…”

Gross for kids but good for parents: differing messages in advertisements for the same products

“…However, as discussed above, parents play a central role in children's eating habits as the deciders and purchasers in the family unit 29 . This is particularly the case for younger children, as parents play a major role in educating and providing their children with healthy food choices during the formative years of childhood 30 . There has been surprisingly little research into the effects of food advertising on parents' perception of commonly consumed children's food items, although the available research suggests that parents may find nutritional claims in these advertisements confusing 31 .…”