Food behaviors of young children: Cognitive and attitudinal factors

Abstract

Young children's diets are determined to a large degree by their mothers’ nutritional knowledge and food attitudes. The primary purpose of this investigation was to determine the effects of mothers’ nutritional knowledge and food attitudes on their children's nutritional knowledge and food behavior. The subjects were 159 children. They ranged in ages from 7 to 9 years old. Their mothers also participated in the study. Bivariate relationships between pairs of variables were tested using the Pearson product‐moment correlation. The major findings were: (1) Children's nutritional knowledge was related to their mothers’ nutritional knowledge and attitudes of sociability. (2) Mothers’ nutritional knowledge was related to their attitudes of sociability and frugality. Nutritional knowledge was negatively correlated with mother's attitudes toward health and social status. (3) Children's food behavior was related to their nutritional knowledge and their mothers’ nutritional knowledge.