Preschool Children's Food Involvement is Related to Fruit and Vegetable Intake
Authors: Jarick Jessica M , Fiese Barbara H ,   The STRONG Kids Research Team
Published: June 2021

Objective

The majority of American children fall far short of meeting national nutrition recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption. Participation in home meal preparation has been associated with stronger preferences for fruits and vegetables and improved diet quality in school‐aged children, but this association has never been examined in younger children. This study investigated the association between involvement in food preparation and planning and fruit and vegetable intake in preschool‐aged children.

Method

Parents of preschool‐aged children (n = 479) participating in the Synergistic Theory and Research on Obesity and Nutrition Group (STRONG) Kids Study filled out the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ) and a Children's Nutrition Behavior Questionnaire based on the Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey, Kindergarten Class (ECLS‐K) interview protocol. The food involvement scale of the CFPQ was calculated (range 0–5), quantifying how much parents encourage children to be involved in meal planning and preparation. Data from the ECLS‐K Children's Nutrition Behavior Questionnaire were transformed to represent the reported number of servings of vegetables and fresh fruit eaten per day by children in the study.

Results

Participants ate an average of 1.68 servings (SD = .91) of fresh fruit and 1.40 servings (SD = .82) of vegetables per day. Analyses investigated the relationship between food involvement (as measured by the CFPQ, M = 2.92, SD = .95) and fruit and vegetable intake (as measured by the ECLS‐K Children's Nutrition Behavior Questionnaire). Food involvement was strongly correlated with children's vegetable consumption (r(479) = .155, p = .001)) and fresh fruit consumption (r(479) = .141, p = .002)). Fresh fruit intake and vegetable intake were also strongly correlated, r(479) = .376, p < .001.

Conclusions

Increased child participation and involvement with food is positively associated with fruit and vegetable intake among preschool aged children. Future investigations should examine the relationship between food involvement and diet quality over time in attempts to determine the causal direction of this relationship. Research efforts going forward should also investigate the predictors and facilitators of food involvement to identify potential areas for future outreach and intervention efforts.

Support or Funding Information

This research was funded, in part, by grants from the Illinois Council for Agriculture Research to Kristen Harrison (PI) and the University of Illinois Health and Wellness Initiative to Barbara Fiese and Sharon Donovan and United States Department of Agriculture (Hatch 793–328) to Barbara Fiese (PI). The STRONG Kids Team includes Kristen Harrison, Kelly Bost, Brent McBride, Sharon Donovan, Diana Grigsby‐Toussaint, Juhee Kim, Janet Liechty, Angela Wiley, Margarita Teran‐Garcia and Barbara Fiese.

Jessica Jarick was supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative of the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture under the Illinois Transdisciplinary Obesity Prevention Program grant (2011‐67001‐30101) to the Division of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Illinois.

Correlations between food involvement and fresh fruit and vegetable intake.

Food Involvement
Fresh Fruit Intake
Vegetable Intake

Food Involvement

.141**
.155**

Fresh Fruit Intake

.376***

Vegetable Intake

p < .05,

p < .01,

p < .001