Children eat more food when they prepare it themselves

Abstract

Data file for manuscript review. Includes data and variable names. Race and income have been omitted for confidentiality but will be made available upon request.

Involvement of children in hands‐on meal preparation and the associated nutrition outcomes: A scoping review

“…This was in line with lower daily calorie intake among children from all weight status and specifically in the overweight/obese subgroup as well 40 . However, it was recently demonstrated that children had an increased intake of both healthy and unhealthy foods after the hands‐on meal preparation session, depending on the foods prepared during the session 46 . This highlights the importance of engaging children in preparing healthy meals to improve eating practices, not merely in preparing unhealthy meals.…”

“…40 However, it was recently demonstrated that children had an increased intake of both healthy and unhealthy foods after the hands-on meal preparation session, depending on the foods prepared during the session. 46 This highlights the importance of engaging children in preparing healthy meals to improve eating practices, not merely in preparing unhealthy meals. Furthermore, the studies conducted had limited dietary intake assessment with respect to determining the effect on nutrients and the serving sizes of foods consumed.…”

Children, Object Value, and Persuasion

“…Persuading children to eat healthy is again open to multiple, subtle influences. As reviewed earlier, children are more willing to eat a salad if they had prepared it themselves (DeJesus et al., ), reflecting their attention to its origins and history. They are more willing to try a food if it was modeled by an individual that the child sees as “like me” – for example, same age or same gender (Frazier et al., ), reflecting their attention to social categories.…”

“…Even preparing one's own food leads children to consume more than another, equivalent food that was prepared by someone else (DeJesus, Gelman, Herold, & Lumeng, ). For example, in the study by DeJesus et al., parents brought children into lab where a researcher read aloud instructions for how to prepare a food by combining a set of prepared ingredients (e.g., for making a salad, children individually added into a bow: chopped romaine lettuce, shredded carrots, cooked peas, croutons, and ranch dressing).…”

“…Children were then presented with the serving of food that they had prepared and an identical serving that someone else had prepared, side‐by‐side, and were permitted to eat as much of each as they wanted. Children ate nearly twice as much of the food they had prepared than the other food—a finding that held up whether the food was a salad or a dessert (DeJesus, et al., ).…”