Dietary Awareness of Primary School Children

Abstract

The dietary awareness of primary school children towards selected food items and components including bread, potatoes, dairy products, fat, fish, meat, fresh fruit, salt, sugar and sweets was evaluated using an interview technique. The children were asked whether they ought to eat more, the same or less of each food and the results are presented for the sample of younger and older children. The results indicate that these selected food items can be broken down into three main areas. First there are those where the majority of children thought we ought to increase consumption; bread, potatoes, dairy products, fish, meat and fresh fruit. Second there is a group of food components including salt, fat and sugar in which there is closer similarity in those advocating more or less consumption. Third there are the food products such as sweets where there are significant differences between age groups, and changes in attitude occur in a limited age span. A discussion of the implications of this work for nutrition education, new food product development and socio‐economic policy is presented together with recommendations for future research.