Fun with food - A parent-child community cooking intervention reduces parental fear and increases children's perceived competence

Parental perceptions of nutritional intake, cooking skills, and food skills among preschoolers

Objective: To determine parents' perceptions of cooking skills, food skills, and nutritional status of children ages 3 to 5 years. Methods: Parents of preschoolers aged 3 to 5 years completed two questionnaires, a Nutri-STEP questionnaire, assessing nutritional status, and a cooking exposure questionnaire. This parent recall questionnaire assessed cooking skills and food skills children possessed. Results: Willingness to try a new vegetable, parental confidence of child's cooking skills, total food skills possessed, and the covariates of gender, age, and ethnicity significantly predicted child dietary quality grouping p = 0.04. Conclusions and Implications: Trying new vegetables was a significant predictor of dietary behavior, with children more likely to try new vegetables demonstrating better dietary behavior (odds ratio= .43, p = 0.03). Trends showed that children with more cooking skills had better diets. Empirical data are needed through experimental designs to examine the integration of cooking skills in the home on child dietary behaviors and long-term cooking development.

Household dietary gatekeepers' perceptions of home cooking and its associated factors: A qualitative inquiry from urban India

The high consumption of calorie-dense, nutrient-poor meals from out of home sources has been identified as a potential risk factor for the growing burden of obesity and diet-related chronic degenerative diseases among urban Indians. Consumption of home cooked meals is linked with positive dietary and health outcomes. However, little is known about the views of Indians regarding home cooking. Therefore, this investigation was designed to qualitatively explore urban Indian nutritional gatekeepers' perceptions of home cooking and the factors influencing it. The social constructivism theoretical framework was employed to inform this qualitative investigation. A purposive sample of 34 household dietary gatekeepers (28 women; 6 men) from the Kolkata metropolis participated in face-to-face/telephonic interviews. In-depth interviews were conducted in English/Hindi/Bengali (translated to English where necessary), digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Inductive thematic analysis was employed to code the transcripts in the NVivo software program. Emerging themes and sub-themes were: (i) Home cooking is a duty; (ii) Facilitators of home cooking (Home cooking is good for health; Home cooking is economical; Preservation of dietary heritage; Home Cooking is a source of happiness) ; (iii) Barriers to home cooking (Paid employment outside the home; Health issues associated with ageing; Limited culinary skills); (iv) Transformation in home cooking; (v) Decline in home cooking; (vi) Acquisition of cooking skills; (vii) Cooking skills are a necessity. These themes have the potential to inform the creation and development of public health policies and interventions aimed at stimulating home cooking for positive dietary and health outcomes. Future research should focus on developing family-based and school-based cooking interventions to inculcate culinary skills in children and adolescents. In addition, government could levy tax on ultra-processed convenience foods to minimize their utilization as well as subsidize sales of raw food ingredients to encourage 'cooking from scratch' using fresh and basic food ingredients.

Global school plate waste estimates highlight the need for building a sustainable food education system

Food waste reduction is essential for supporting the sustainability of food systems. Wasteful behaviours are difficult to change after they have been formed, highlighting the importance of early interventions. Here we present an assessment of school plate food waste from 29 countries, and examine the environmental implications, causes, and interventions. School plate waste ranged from 4% to 46% per capita per meal and was positively correlated with country income levels. On a global scale, this waste embodies ∼150 Mha of cropland and ∼770 MtCO2e of greenhouse gas emissions; hence, reducing school plate food waste offers potentially large environmental gains. We propose a comprehensive, multistakeholder framework centred around sustainable food education that cultivates food systems knowledge and skills, and an appreciation for nature and food labour to reduce the psychological distance between youth and their food waste. To effectively implement the framework requires the support and engagement of families, communities and the broader society beyond the confines of schools.

Nutritional and Culinary Habits to Empower Families (n-CHEF): a feasibility study to increase consumption and home cooking of plant-based foods

OBJECTIVE

To analyse the feasibility and acceptability of a culinary nutritional intervention aimed at increasing plant-based foods consumption in the context of the Mediterranean diet in parent-child dyads.

DESIGN

The Nutritional and Culinary Habits to Empower Families (n-CHEF) is a 9-month feasibility study that included four culinary nutritional workshops (two face to face, two online) led by a chef and a dietitian-nutritionist. These workshops combined cooking with plant-based foods, with nutritional advice and experimental activities. The main outcomes were retention, quality of the intervention (monitoring workshops, acceptability and perceived impact) and changes in dietary and cooking habits.

SETTING

Parent-child dyads, Spain.

PARTICIPANTS

Parent-child (aged 10-14 years) dyads.

RESULTS

Fifteen parent-child dyads were recruited, of which thirteen were retained during the 6-month follow-up. All but one parent-child dyads attended the four workshops. The overall assessment of the workshops was positive, although the online workshops were rated lower than the face to face. In general, parent-child dyads reported benefits in terms of nutrition and cooking aspects. Parents significantly increased their adherence to the Mediterranean diet, but non-significant changes were observed in children. However, children increased their consumption of vegetables and legumes and reduced snacks and ready meals. Parents also changed some of their culinary habits and increased their confidence in cooking at home.

CONCLUSIONS

The n-CHEF showed that the culinary nutritional intervention had good levels of recruitment, retention and acceptability among parent-child dyads. In addition, dietary and culinary knowledge and habits can be improved, although further studies are needed to know the long-term effects in larger populations.

An online qualitative study exploring wants and needs for a cooking programme during pregnancy in the UK and Ireland

BACKGROUND

Optimal maternal nutrition is associated with better pregnancy and infant outcomes. Culinary nutrition programmes have potential to improve diet quality during pregnancy. Therefore, this research aimed to understand the experiences of cooking and the wants and needs of pregnant women regarding a cooking and food skills programme in the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (ROI).

METHODS

Online focus group discussions with pregnant women and those who had experienced a pregnancy in the UK or ROI were conducted between February and April 2022. Two researchers conducted a thematic analysis. Seven focus groups with ROI participants (n = 24) and six with UK participants (n = 28) were completed.

RESULTS

Five themes were generated. These were (1) cooking during pregnancy: barriers, motivators and solutions; (2) food safety, stress and guilt; (3) need for cooking and food skills programmes and desired content; (4) programme structure; (5) barriers and facilitators to programme participation. Overall, there was support for a programme focusing on broad food skills, including planning, food storage, using leftovers and to manage pregnancy-specific physiological symptoms such as food aversions. Participants emphasised the importance of inclusivity for a diverse range of people and lifestyles for programme design and content.

CONCLUSIONS

Current findings support the use of digital technologies for culinary nutrition interventions, potentially combined with in-person sessions using a hybrid structure to enable the development of a support network.

Cooking and food skills confidence of team sport athletes in Ireland

Nutritional support often focuses on cooking and food skills such as food selection, recipe planning and meal preparation. Individuals with greater cooking and food skills confidence have previously displayed higher diet quality scores and lower intakes of overall calories, saturated fat and sugar. Despite this, the cooking and food skills of team sport athletes have yet to be investigated. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between cooking and food skills confidence and athletes' demographic characteristics. A validated measure for the assessment of cooking and food skills confidence was distributed via an online survey. Participants were required to rate their confidence on a Likert scale (1 "very poor" - 7 "very good") for 14 items related to cooking skills and 19 items for food skills. Food engagement, general health interest and self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption as a measure of diet quality were also measured. The survey was completed by 266 team sport athletes (male: 150, female: 116, age: 24.8 ± 6.1 years). Group differences were explored using t-tests and ANOVA and associations were evaluated using Spearman's correlation and hierarchical multiple regressions. Athletes' total cooking and food skills confidence was 62.7 ± 17.4 (64.0 ± 17.8%) and 83.8 ± 20.1 (63.0 ± 15.1%), respectively. Females reported greater confidence in both cooking (+20.3%, p < 0.01) and food skills (+9.2%, p < 0.01). Hierarchical multiple regressions explained 48.8% of the variance in cooking skills confidence and 44% of the variance in food skills confidence with gender, previous culinary training, cooking learning stage, general health interest and food engagement all remaining significant in the cooking skills confidence model and cooking frequency, previous culinary training, general health interest and food engagement remaining significant in the food skills confidence model. Male team sport athletes may benefit the most from educational interventions designed to increase cooking and food skills confidence.