Developing food literacy in young children in the home environment
Sanjeewa Pradeep Wijayaratne, Kate Westberg, Mike Reid, Anthony Worsley
Abstract
Abstract Food literacy is a concept that encompasses a range of skills and knowledge required by consumers to navigate an increasingly complex foodscape and ensure healthy dietary behaviours. It is important that these skills are developed from a young age as food‐related consumption behaviours can persist into adulthood. The purpose of this study is to investigate how the family's dietary gatekeeper, the person primarily responsible for food shopping and meal preparation in the home environment, shares their food literacy skills and knowledge with young children and to identify any challenges they face in doing so. In‐depth semi‐structured face‐to‐face interviews were conducted with parents with high levels of food literacy who had children between 5 and 9 years old. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings identify that dietary gatekeepers share their food literacy capabilities with young children in four main ways as follows: (1) communicating the relationship between food and health, (2) engaging children in food selection, (3) involving children in simple food preparation tasks and (4) modelling healthy behaviours. These practices incorporate skills and knowledge related to the preparation, selection and eating domains of food literacy. Several challenges were also encountered by gatekeepers when trying to share food literacy including time pressure, safety concerns, lack of interest from children and conflict between siblings. The current study highlights the importance of developing initiatives to encourage and support dietary gatekeepers to educate and develop food literacy in young children and to assist them in overcoming the challenges in doing so.