Child involvement in choosing a recipe, purchasing ingredients, and cooking at school increases willingness to try new foods and reduces food neophobia

Objective To investigate the effect of involving children in their feeding process (choosing a recipe, purchasing the ingredients, and cooking) on their lunch food choice in a school environment. Design Quasi-experimental. Setting Two schools in Bilbao, Spain. Participants A total of 202 children (a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Maiz Aldalur, Edurne, Urkia Susín, Iratxe, Urdaneta Artola, Elena, Allirot, Xavier
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universidad del País Vasco
Repositorio:Addi. Archivo Digital para la Docencia y la Investigación
OAI Identifier:oai:addi.ehu.eus:10810/68197
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10810/68197
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:children food neophobia
vegetable intake
recipe choice
ingredients purchasing
cooking
Descripción
Sumario:Objective To investigate the effect of involving children in their feeding process (choosing a recipe, purchasing the ingredients, and cooking) on their lunch food choice in a school environment. Design Quasi-experimental. Setting Two schools in Bilbao, Spain. Participants A total of 202 children (aged 8–9 years) participated in the study (43% girls), with 99 in the nutrition education (NE) group and 103 in the hands-on (HO) group. Intervention Three 1-hour workshops (1 workshop/wk), different for each group: HO, cooking-related activities, and NE, healthy habits promotion through nutrition education activities. Main Outcome Measures Food neophobia, diet quality, cooking self-efficacy and attitudes toward cooking, and food intake and selection of the experimental lunches. Analysis Chi-square test of independence, ANCOVA, and t tests were performed. Results Students from the HO group selected and ate more spinach/broccoli (P < 0.001 and P = 0.02, respectively) for the first lunch; and selected more spinach/broccoli (P = 0.04) for the second lunch. After the intervention, improvements were observed for spinach liking and neophobia for the HO group and cooking self-efficacy and KidMed score for both groups. Conclusions and Implications Both interventions succeeded in improving children's diet quality, but only the HO group reduced food neophobia levels. Therefore, involving children in choosing a recipe, purchasing ingredients, and cooking may promote changing eating behaviors toward healthy habits such as increasing vegetable consumption.