A Call for Culinary Skills Education in Childhood Obesity-Prevention Interventions: Current Status and Peer Influences

Abstract

D URING THE PAST DECADE, THERE HAS BEEN AN interest in resurrecting formal culinary skills education for youths (ie, school-aged children). These pursuits have been provoked by what policy makers, scientists, and food and nutrition practitioners suggest is a societal decline in culinary skills. Some stakeholders believe that this “de-skilling” represents a transition caused by sociodemographic shifts, such as nontraditional family structures, women in the workforce, and time constraints. Current consumers have new value equations for making food decisions. Although health, taste, cost, and convenience predict food choices, cost and convenience are weighted with more value than ever before. Cooking from scratch is no longer the norm in consumers’ kitchens. Dramatic changes in domestic cooking practices have led to decreased transference of essential cooking skills from parents to youths. Family cooking has become a means to an end, rather than a process for social connectedness, cultural expression, and life enhancement. As youths gain autonomy in their transition to young adulthood, they often lack the skills necessary to complete basic food-related tasks. Some believe that an emerging inability to prepare meals at home is predictive of poor dietary habits, contributing to childhood obesity. This commentary serves as an update on the call to incorporate culinary skills education in childhood obesityprevention interventions. Food, nutrition, and dietetics practitioners should evaluate investments in culinary skills education approaches. This commentary addresses the question of why culinary skills education is important within the childhood obesity epidemic context, how effective culinary skills education interventions have been at modifying obesity-related risk behaviors, and how to design more effective culinary skills education programs in the future by drawing upon peer influences.