food behaviors of young children: cognitive and attitudinal factors

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Food behaviors of youngchildren: Cognitive andattitudinal factorsBelen C. Mills a & Virginia C. Rahardjo ba The Florida State University , Tallahassee,Florida, USAb Jakarta, IndonesiaPublished online: 03 Aug 2006.

To cite this article: Belen C. Mills & Virginia C. Rahardjo (1987) Foodbehaviors of young children: Cognitive and attitudinal factors, Early ChildDevelopment and Care, 29:3, 321-330, DOI: 10.1080/0300443870290308

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Early Child Development and Care,1987, Vol. 29, pp. 321-330Photocopying permitted by license only

© Gordon and BreachScience Publishers, Inc., 1987

Printed in Great Britain

Food behaviors of young children: Cognitiveand attitudinal factors

BELEN C. MILLSThe Florida State University,Tallahassee, Florida, USAand

VIRGINIA C. RAHARDJOJakarta, Indonesia

(Received 10 February 1987)

Young children's diets are determined to a large degree by theirmothers' nutritional knowledge and food attitudes. The primarypurpose of this investigation was to determinethe effects of mothers'nutritional knowledge and food attitudes on their children's nutrition-al knowledge and food behavior.

The subjects were 159 children. They ranged in ages from 7 to 9years old. Their mothers also participated in the study.

Bivariate relationships between pairs of variables were testedusing the Pearson product-moment correlation. The major findingswere:

(1) Children's nutritional knowledge was related to theirmothers' nutritional knowledge and attitudes of sociability.

(2) Mothers' nutritional knowledge was related to their attitudesof sociability and frugality. Nutritional knowledge was nega-tively correlated with mother's attitudes toward health andsocial status.

(3) Children's food behavior was related to their nutritionalknowledge and their mothers' nutritional knowledge.

KEY WORDS: Food behaviors, nutritional knowledge, attitudes.

INTRODUCTION

The quality of the diets of school children is determined to somedegree by two factors. One is the mothers' knowledge of nutrition.The other is cultural attitudes toward food. For example, Caliendoand Sajur (1978) reported that the nutritional knowledge ofmothers exerted a great influence on their children's diets. Theyalso found that homemakers' increased knowledge of nutritionresulted in better balanced diets (Gassie and Jones, 1972).Moreover, Eppright, et al. (1969) reported a positive correlation

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322 B.C. MILLS AND V.C. RAHARDJO

between mothers' nutritional knowledge and the quality of the dietsof preschool children.

Food behavior is part of the enculturation of children (Lowen-berg, 1974). Since children often cannot select their own diets, theyhave limited opportunities to apply their nutritional knowledge.For example, Bell and Lamb (1973) reported that nutritionalknowledge taught to fifth graders did not have much influence onthe children's dietary behavior. Also, increased test scores onnutrition were not reflected in the dietary habits of fourth and fifthgraders (Baker, 1972). However the nutritional knowledge ofchildren did correlate positively with their dietary complexityscores or the variety of food frequently consumed (Yperman andVermeersh, 1977).

Food habits are deeply entrenched in cultures and are difficult tochange. For example, Schwartz (1975) reported that the foodpractices of high school students were based more on habits andcustoms than on an understanding of nutrition. Food, as a culturalobject, is manifested in people's attitudes and values which arepassed on from generation to generation. With young children,food knowledge and the food attitudes of their mothers are pivotalpoints in the study of food behavior.

PURPOSE

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the effects ofmothers' nutritional knowledge and food attitudes on second andthird grade children's nutritional knowledge and food behaviors.

The hypotheses tested are as follows:1. There is no relationship between children's nutritional

knowledge and their mothers' nutritional knowledge.2. There is no relationship between children's nutritional

knowledge and their mothers' food attitudes.3. There is no relationship between mothers' nutritional know-

ledge and their food attitudes.4. There is no relationship between the mothers' food attitudes

and their children's food behaviors.

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FOOD BEHAVIORS OF YOUNG CHILDREN 323

5. There is no relationship between children's nutritionalknowledge and their food behaviors.

6. There is no relationship between mothers' nutritional know-ledge and their children's food behaviors.

Subjects

The sample consisted of 159 children and their mothers. Thechildren were enrolled in Grades 2 and 3. They were randomlyselected from four schools in Leon Country, Florida. Of the 74 boysand 85 girls, 59% were white and 41% were black. Their agesranged from seven to nine years with a median of 7.7 years. Themothers ranged in age from 23 to 60 years, with a median of 30.7years. The mothers' education ranged from twelfth grade tograduate school. 68% of them were employed full or part time.Annual family income ranged from $6,000 to 23,000.

Instruments used:

The following instruments were used to collect data on nutritionknowledge, attitudes toward food, and food behavior.

1. The Grade 2-3 edition of the Comprehensive Assessment ofNutrition Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices (CANKAP) was usedto measure children's nutritional knowledge.

2. The parent edition of CANKAP was used to measuremothers' nutritional knowledge.

3. The Attitude Index (Steelman, 1976) was used to measure the foodattitudes of the mothers. It is an index of such attitudes aspropensity to change, convenience, frugality, sociability andconcern for health and social status and associated values.

4. The Food Frequency Checklist was used to measure the children'sfood behavior or variety of foods frequently consumed. Adietary complexity score resulted.

5. A questionnaire was used to collect data on the mother' age,education, employment status, race, family income, child'sage and sex.

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PROCEDURES

The nutritional knowledge test (CANKAP) was administered tothe children by their homeroom teachers. The questionnaires forthe mothers were brought home by the children and returned to thehomeroom teachers. If the child was not living with the mother, themother surrogate was asked to fill out the questionnaire. Itconsisted of items concerned with demographic information, foodfrequency usage, food attitudes, and nutritional knowledge. Thedata obtained from the children and their mothers were analyzedusing the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 600—9 (Nie,Hull, Jenkins, Steinbrenner and Bent, 1975.) Composite scores forthe nutritional knowledge tests, attitude indices, and dietarycomplexity scores were computed. Estimates of the mean, median,and standard deviation for each variable were derived. ThePearson product-moment correlation was computed to determinerelationships between pairs of variables. An alpha level of .05 wasset as the criterion of significance.

RESULTS

As shown in Table 1, children's nutritional knowledge wassignificantly correlated r— .29 with their mothers' nutritionalknowledge. This is significant at the .001 alpha level. Thus thehypothesis that there is no relationship between children's nutri-tional knowledge and that of their mothers' was rejected.

An attitude index developed by Steelman (1976), was used tomeasure the mothers' food attitudes. Table 2 shows the means, thestandard deviations, and the correlation coefficients of the sixattitude indices, the children's and their mothers' nutritionalknowledge.

The mothers' and the children's nutritional knowledge weresignificantly related to the mothers' sociability. Three otherattitudes were significantly correlated with mothers' nutritionalknowledge. They are frugality, social status, and health. Neitherpropensity to change or convenience were significantly correlated

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Table 1. Pairs of variables and their correlations

ResearchHypothesisNumber

i

2

3

4

5

6

Pairs of Variables

Children's nutritionalknowledgeChildren's nutritionalknowledge

Mothers' nutritionalknowledge

Mothers' foodattitudes(sociability)

Children's nutritionalknowledge

Mothers' nutritionalknowledge

Mothers' nutritionalknowledgeMothers' foodattitudes(sociability)Mothers' foodattitude(sociability)Children's foodbehaviors (totaldietary complexityscores)Children's foodbehaviors (totaldietary complexityscores)

Children's foodbehaviors (totaldietary complexityscores)

Correlations

.286***

.246***

.203**

.024

.160*

.231**

*/>=.o5

**/> = .01**•/> = . 001

with mothers' nutritional knowledge. A significant negative cor-relation was found between the mothers' nutritional knowledge andtheir attitudes toward social status and health.

Is there a relationship between mothers' food attitudes and theirchildren's food behavior? To answer this question, six indices ofmothers' attitudes toward food were correlated with their chil-dren's dietary complexity scores. The correlation coefficients of allpairs of variables were found not to be statistically significant at the.05 alpha level. As shown in Table 2, the mothers' sociabilityattitude was related to both children's and mothers' nutritionalknowledge. However, it was not related to children's food behavior.

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Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and correlations of six attitude indices withnutritional knowledge

Mothers' FoodAttitudes

ConvenienceSociability

Social Status

Propensity to Change

Frugality

Health

Mean±S.D.

i2.9±3-3I2.7±2.712.4 + 3.6

I I . 4 ± 3 . I

9-3 ± 3 °9.2 ±2.2

Pearson R

Nutritional

Children

0-0530.246**

— 0.040

0.035

0-115

— 0.102

Knowledge

Mothers

0.014

0.203*

-0.250**

0.006

0.198*

-0.286**

**/><. 001

These results may indicate that mothers' knowledge rather thanattitudes toward food tend to influence children's food behavior.

The relationship between the children's and the mothers'nutrition knowledge, and the children's dietary complexity scores isrevealed in Table 3. The children's nutritional knowledge wassignificantly correlated with their food behavior. When the dietaryscores were broken down by meals, children's knowledge ofnutrition was found to be significantly correlated with their lunch;but not with their breakfast, dinner or snack complexity scores.The null hypothesis that there is no relationship between children'snutritional knowledge and their total dietary complexity scores wasrejected at the .05 alpha level. A positive relationship betweenchildren's nutritional knowledge and their food behavior wasfound; r = . i 6 .

The mothers' nutritional knowledge significantly correlatedr= .231, with their children's total complexity scores for all meals.The null hypothesis that there is no relationship between mothers'nutritional knowledge and their children's total dietary complexityscores was rejected.

Among the four meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack,dinner had the highest dietary complexity score. This was to be

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Table 3. Correlation coefficients between nutritional knowledge and dietarycomplexity by meals

Dietary Complexity Pearson R

Nutritional Knowledge

Children Mothers

Breakfast

Lunch

Dinner

Snack

Total

0.1040.182*

0.128

0.105

0.160*

0.161*0.177*

0.231**

0.212**

0.231**

V<-°5**p<.oi

expected because a greater variety of food is usually eaten duringthis meal. The foods most often consumed by children are shown inTable 4. The foods least often consumed are shown in Table 5.

Table 4. Foods most often consumed by children

RankOrder Mean Foods

1 9.2 Milk

2 6.9 White bread, rolls or biscuits

3 6.6 Fruit juices

4 6.4 Oranges, tangerines or grapefruit

5 5.8 Desserts (cakes, pies, jello or pudding)

6 5.5 Beef, chicken or pork

7 5.5 Apples, bananas or grapes

8 4.0 Peanuts, peanut butter or cheese spread

9 3.8 Raisin bread, rye bread or whole wheat bread

10 3.8 Potatoes (mashed, baked or fried)

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Table 5. Foods least often consumed by children

RankOrder Mean Foods

1 0.4 Rhubarb, radish or beets

2 0.6 Bean sprouts, mushroom or chayote

3 0.7 Papaya, pineapple or mango

4 0.7 Asparagus, okra or artichoke

5 0.9 Blueberries, blackberries, or raspberries

6 1.3 Dried beans (navy, kidney, blackeye or lentils)

7 1.4 Plums, apricot or strawberries

8 1.5 Cantaloupe, honeydew or watermelon

9 1.7 Broccoli, brussel sprouts or squash

10 1.9 Spinach, collard greens or kale

DISCUSSION

The mothers' nutritional knowledge was found to significantlycorrelate with their children's food behavior. This finding seems tosuggest that the mothers' knowledge about nutrition was compati-ble with the complexity of their children's diet. It was also foundthat the mothers' nutritional knowledge was associated with theirattitudes towards food—sociability, frugality, health and socialstatus. Moreover, the relationship between mothers' nutritionalknowledge and the two attitudinal variables—health and socialstatus proved to be negative. This indicates that mothers who areknowledgeable about nutrition tend to be less conscious abouthealth and social status. The negative correlation between mothers'nutritional knowledge and health was surprising. Previous investi-gators have found a positive relationship between the variables.However, Yetley and Roderuck (1980) also found a negativecorrelation between health attitudes and nutritional knowledge ofyoung husbands.

The fact that mothers' nutritional knowledge was not related totheir attitude on convenience indicates that what mothers know

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about nutrition has little influence on their feelings towards fastfoods or on their feelings about meal preparation convenience. Itwas also found that mothers' nutritional knowledge was related tothe children's food behavior. This suggests that mothers applywhat they know about nutrition.

The sociability aspect in food attitudes was based in the socialinteractions within the family and the community in the presence offood. Sociability was the only mothers' attitude related to bothchildren's and mothers' nutrition knowledge. However, sociabilitywas not related to children's food behavior. This indicates thatmothers' and children's knowledge about nutrition influence thefood behavior of children much more than the mothers' attitudeabout sociability. Mothers' attitude on propensity to change wasnot related to children's food behavior. This reaffirms the findingthat mothers' food attitudes do not greatly influence the variety offood they offer to their children.

The total dietary complexity of children's diet was found to berelated to their nutritional knowledge. However, among the mealsoffered throughout the day, lunch was the only meal that wasrelated to the children's knowledge of nutrition. That may be dueto school lunches which follow the practices taught to the childrenin school. Thus, children's nutrition knowledge was found to besignificantly correlated with the dietary score for lunch; but not forbreakfast, dinner or snack. However, this is not a result of freechoice for the boundaries of school lunch are necessarily narrow.

The children's food behavior was related to their nutritionalknowledge and to their mothers' nutritional knowledge. It was notrelated to their mothers' attitudes toward food.

Educational Implications

1. The findings indicate that the most influential cognitive factoraffecting children's behavior is the mothers' nutritional know-ledge. Programs aimed at improving the complexity of youngchildren's diets might well be implemented through thenutritional education of mothers.

2. The children's knowledge of nutrition appears to influence their

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mothers' attitude of sociability. Programs and materials fornutritional education might well emphasize the social aspects ofnutrition. Mothers who value social relationships may be willingto serve a variety of food to their families and friends.The negative correlation between mothers' knowledge of nutri-tion and health may indicate the need for educators to find anon-health-oriented approach to teaching nutrition.

References

Baker, M.J. (1972). Influence of nutrition education on the 4th and 5th graders,Journal of Nutrition Education, 4, 55-58.

Bell, C.G., and Lamb, M.W. (1973). Nutrition education and dietary behaviorof 5th graders, Journal of Nutrition Education, 5, 196-99.

Caliendo, M.A., and Sajur, D. (1978). The dietary status of preschool children;an ecological approach, Journal of Nutrition Education, 10, 69-72.

Eppright, E.S., Fox, H.J., Fryer, B.A., Lamkin, J.A., and Vivian, V.M.(1969). The North-Central Regional Study of diets of preschool children:2. Nutrition knowledge and attitudes of mothers, Journal of Home Economics,62, 327-32.

Gassie, E. and Jones, J . (1972). Sustained behavioral change, Journal of NutritionEducation, 4, 19-22.

Lowenberg, M.E. (1974). The development of food patterns. Journal of theAmerican Dietetic Association, 65, 263-68.

Nie, N.H., Hull, C.H., Jenkins, J.G., Steinbrenner, K. & Bent, D.H.(1975). Statistical package for the social sciences (2nd edn.), New York:McGraw-Hill Book Co.

Schwartz, N.E. (1975). Nutritional knowledge, attitudes and practices of highschool graduates, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 66, 18-31.

Steelman, V.P. (1976). Attitudes towards food as indicators of subcultural valuesystem, Home Economics Research Journal, 5, 21—32.

Yetley, E.A. and Roderruck, C. (1980). Nutritional knowledge and health goalsof young spouses, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 77, 30-41.

Yperman, A.M., and Vermeersh, J.A. (1977). Factors associated withchildrens' food habits, Journal of Nutrition Education, 11, 72-80.

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food behaviors of young children: cognitive and attitudinal factors

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