A pilot study to explore the challenges of changing children's food and health concepts

Abstract

Objective To investigate the effect of a nutrition education intervention and four hours of related teaching on the nutrition concepts of a sample of 9 year-old children. Design Prepost test design. Children's food classification concepts were assessed before and after the intervention and nutrition teaching. Setting Year 4 class of a suburban primary school in South Wales. Method The children completed a food classification task before and after visiting a health promotion exhibition and receiving lessons emphasising food/health related concepts.Results Comparison of the results before and after the intervention suggested that there was no significant change in the participant's conceptual understanding of food.Conclusion Children's food classification concepts remain resistant to change despite enhanced exposure to nutrition information.

Knowledge, attitudes and behaviour regarding nutrition and dietary intake of seventh-grade students in rural areas of Mi Yun County, Beijing, China

“…For example, Freeman and Bunting [38] found that all of their study participants were knowledgeable about healthy and unhealthy foods and drinks, but they were seemingly unable to apply this knowledge to modify their daily dietary choices. Bullen and Benton [39] concluded that while participants may gain factual knowledge, they do not develop the skills to bring about behavioural change. Despite this, the importance of popularizing nutrition knowledge is essential, and it is widely acknowledged that gaining accurate relevant knowledge is the basis for behavioural changes [40][41][42].…”

The implementation and effectiveness of school-based nutrition promotion programmes using a health-promoting schools approach: a systematic review

“…A treatment effect was found for the nutrition education and garden group for: ability to identify vegetables; willingness to taste capsicum, broccoli, tomato and pea; and student preference to eat broccoli and pea as a snack HPS, health-promoting school; CT, controlled trial; RCT, randomized controlled trial; PSE, Personal and Social Education; SES, socio-economic status. Radcliffe et al (36) Wind et al (37) Parker and Fox (38) Rana and Alvaro (39) McVey et al (45) Laurence et al (46) O'Brien et al (47) Overall rating* Mullally et al (44) Young (40) Ellis and Ellis (42) Vereecken et al (43) Overall rating* (48) Bullen and Benton (49) Kreisel (50) Vijayapushpam et al (51) Hamilton-Ekeke and Thomas (52) Morgan et al (53) Overall Nutrition promotion using health-promoting schools approach: systematic review Table 2 Continued…”

An Investigation of Children’s Understanding of Food and Nutrition

“…Arguably, the success of behavior interventions concerning food and nutrition with young children ultimately depends on their understanding of related concepts. Yet, very little is known about how young children think about food, and the development of their understanding of food and nutrition (Zeinstra et al 2007 (Contento 1981;Matheson et al 2002;Stewart et al 2006;Worsley et al 1984;Worsley et al 1983); children's understanding of food and health (Bullen and Benton 2004;Hart et al 2002;Turner 1997); how children classify food into groups (Michela and Contento 1984;Nguyen 2007); as well as influential environmental factors associated with children's food consumption (Yperman and Vermeersch 1979) and food preferences (Beyer and Morris 1974;Birch and Fisher 1998). Among this body of research, a small number of studies have explored children's understanding of food and nutrition concepts based on children's cognitive development (Zeinstra et al 2007).…”

“…Both of these studies describe their findings as they relate to the whole group of participants, rather than presenting the conceptual information from age to age, or in terms of developmental stages. Some studies focus on a specific age group, such as 9-year olds (Bullen and Benton 2004), preschoolers (Matheson et al 2002), 7-and 11-year olds (Stewart et al 2006). These studies, however, were not able to capture the developmental changes in children's understanding of concepts concerning food and nutrition.…”

“…Faced with such challenges most researchers have opted for qualitative methods in their attempts to document children's understanding of food (e.g., Bullen and Benton 2004;Contento 1981;Turner 1997;Matheson et al 2002). For example, data regarding children's conceptual understanding of food have been collected through open-ended questions based on one-on-one interviews as well as by way of focus group interviews with children.…”