Abstract
Objective
To investigate whether preschoolers are able to identify and categorize foods, and
whether their ability to classify food as healthy predicts their hypothetical food
choice.
Design
Structured interviews and body measurements with preschoolers, and teacher reports
of classroom performance.
Setting
Six Head Start centers in a large southeastern region.
Participants
A total of 235 preschoolers (mean age [SD], 4.73 [0.63] years; 45.4% girls).
Intervention(s)
Teachers implemented a nutrition education intervention across the 2014–2015 school
year in which children were taught to identify and categorize food as sometimes (ie, unhealthy) and anytime (ie, healthy).
Main Outcome Measures
Preschooler responses to a hypothetical snack naming, classifying, and selection scenario.
Analysis
Hierarchical regression analyses to examine predictors of child hypothetical food
selection.
Results
While controlling for child characteristics and cognitive functioning, preschoolers
who were better at categorizing food as healthy or unhealthy were more likely to say
they would choose the healthy food. Low-contrast food pairs in which food had to be
classified based on multiple dimensions were outside the cognitive abilities of the
preschoolers.
Conclusions and Implications
Nutrition interventions may be more effective in helping children make healthy food
choices if developmental limitations in preschoolers' abilities to categorize food
is addressed in their curriculum. Classification of food into evaluative categories
is challenging for this age group. Categorizing on multiple dimensions is difficult,
and dichotomous labeling of food as good or bad is not always accurate in directing
children toward making food choices. Future research could evaluate further preschoolers'
developmental potential for food categorization and nutrition decision making and
consider factors that influence healthy food choices at both snack and mealtime.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 20, 2017
Accepted:
September 26,
2017
Footnotes
Conflict of Interest Disclosure: The authors' conflict of interest disclosures can be found online with this article on www.jneb.org.
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved.
