Play with Your Food and Cook It! Tactile Play with Fish as a Way of Promoting Acceptance of Fish in 11- to 13-Year-Old Children in a School Setting-A Qualitative Study.

Rikke Højer,Michael Bom Frøst,Karen Wistoft

doi:10.3390/nu12103180

Rikke Højer, Michael Bom Frøst + Show 1 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12103180

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Journal: Nutrients	Publication Date: Oct 17, 2020
Citations: 10	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University College Absalon, University of Copenhagen

Abstract

Despite a tradition of consuming fish in Denmark and despite the health benefits of eating fish, Danish children consume only one-third of the officially recommended amount of fish. The objective of this study was to explore an experiential and sensory-based exercise in a school setting with focus on tactile play and cooking as a way of promoting 11- to 13-year-old children’s acceptance of fish. The design was a qualitative exploratory multiple-case design using participant observation in a school setting. Six classes were recruited from the Eastern part of Denmark (n = 132). Based on an exercise with cooking fish and gyotaku (fish print), four meta-themes were identified by applying applied thematic analysis: rejection, acceptance, craftsmanship, and interaction. Rejection and acceptance appeared along a rejection–acceptance continuum related to how the fish was categorised (animal, non-animal, food) in different phases of the experiment. Rejection was promoted by mucus, smell, animalness, and texture, whereas helping each other, tactile play, and craftsmanship promoted acceptance. In conclusion, this study found that tactile play combined with cooking could be a way of promoting acceptance of fish. The findings also support a school setting as a potential gateway in promoting healthy food behaviour.

Highlights

With regard to how children responded to handling, preparing, and cooking the fish and how the process of the gyotaku experiment affected the acceptance, we identified that response of rejection and acceptance moved back and forth on a continuum
Rejection was driven by slimy touch, whole animal, smell, cutting through skin, texture of fish meat in the mouth, and taste, and acceptance was promoted by togetherness, helping each other, tactile play, re-categorisation of the fish, exploration, pride, skills, and was self-made
The study revealed that autonomy, skills, pride, and helping each other in the groups were important factors in promoting acceptance, whereas the texture of the fish, for example, led to rejection

Summary

Introduction

The adolescent life phase is critical when it comes to behavioural changes in, for example, dietary habits [4]. The changes in dietary habits are due to, for example, an increase in autonomy and a decrease in family influence [5,6]. Fatty fish have a high content of vitamin D, which is important for e.g., calcium (Ca) absorption, bone health, and childhood growth stages [7,8]. Especially those high in n-3 poly unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), reduce incidences of, for example, diabetes mellitus, systemic arterial hypertension, central obesity and hyper-lipidemia [9,10], and seem to positively influence intestinal microbiota [11]

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