A theory-based approach to teaching young children about health: A recipe for understanding

Poor conceptual knowledge in the food domain and food rejection dispositions in 3- to 7-year-old children

Previous research established that children with poorer taxonomic knowledge in the food domain display increased levels of food rejection. However, the food domain heavily lends itself to script and thematic conceptual knowledge (e.g., pancakes at breakfast), to which young children already attend. This series of studies investigated the development of conceptual knowledge, specifically in the food domain, and the link with food rejection. Study 1 used a nonconflicting triad task testing children's knowledge of four subtypes of script and thematic associations (food-food pairs, food-utensil pairs, event scripts, and meal scripts) with children aged 3-6 years living in the United States (18 males and 14 females). Study 2 employed the same design along with a measure of food rejection in 3- to 6-year-olds living in France (67 males and 62 females). There was significant conceptual development in both groups, but thematic food concepts are acquired earlier than meal script concepts. Study 3 investigated the link between thematic and script cross-classification and food rejection in 39 females and 33 males living in France (4- to 7-year-olds). Results demonstrate that children as young as 3 years old are already attending to thematic and script structures to inform food-based decision making. Even more critically, Study 3 showed that increased food rejection tendencies are negatively related to script and thematic understanding in the food domain. Such seminal studies illustrate the importance of conceptual knowledge in children's interpretation and acceptance of food, highlighting promising avenues for knowledge-based interventions to foster dietary variety.

What Children and Adolescents Know and Need to Learn about Cancer

Despite cancer's devastating effects on health and longevity, and the critical role of health habits formed during childhood and adolescence in its prevention, children's knowledge of contributors to cancer is understudied. In this paper, the first developmental analysis of the literature, we outline relevant theoretical perspectives and three early emerging intuitions about illness evident among preschool children-contagion/germ, contamination, and unhealthy lifestyle theories-and then review research on elementary and secondary school students' awareness of risk factors for cancer in light of these early intuitive theories. Our analysis centers on the 16 studies we could locate, done in seven countries, that allowed calculating the percentages of children of different age groups who mentioned various risk factors in response to open-ended questions or endorsed them in response to structured questions. Awareness of primary known risk factors (led by smoking), lifestyle contributors, and personal factors (genetics and old age) increased with age, while contact myths decreased with age until adolescents began to show awareness of sexual contact as a contributor to certain cancers. In addition, the analysis revealed higher levels of awareness in response to structured questions than in response to open-ended questions; a glaring need for research asking young school-aged children about key risk factors and exploring not only their knowledge but their causal understanding; a need for attention to sociocultural influences; and connections between preschool children's intuitive theories of disease and older children's patterns of belief about cancer that can help guide school-based cancer education.

Children's implicit food cognition: Developing a food Implicit Association Test

Assessing children's reasoning about food, including their health knowledge and their food preferences, is an important step toward understanding how health messages may influence children's food choices. However, in many studies, assessing children's reasoning relies on parent report or could be susceptible to social pressure from adults. To address these limitations, the present study describes the development of a food version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The IAT has been used to examine children's implicit stereotypes about social groups, yet few studies have used the IAT in other domains (such as food cognition). Four- to 12-year-olds (n = 123) completed the food IAT and an explicit card sort task, in which children assessed foods based on their perception of the food's healthfulness (healthy vs. unhealthy) and palatability (yummy vs. yucky). Surprisingly, children demonstrated positive implicit associations towards vegetables. This pattern may reflect children's health knowledge, given that the accuracy of children's healthfulness ratings in the card sort task positively predicted children's food IAT d-scores. Implications for both food cognition and the IAT are discussed.

How information about what is "healthy" versus "unhealthy" impacts children's consumption of otherwise identical foods

Can brief messages about health influence children's consumption of identical foods? Across a series of studies, we manipulated children's consumption of identical foods (fruit sauces) by pairing those foods with brief messages about each food's health status. What initially appeared to be a preference for foods described as healthy among 5- to 6-year-old children (Studies 1-2) actually reflected a preference for alternatives to foods described as unhealthy (Studies 3-5), including comparison foods that were described with negative or neutral content. Although the 2 foods on each trial were identical, children consistently ate more of the alternative to a food described as unhealthy. Similar effects were observed among 8- to 9-year-old children (Study 6). These results demonstrate that children's eating behavior is affected by messages they receive from other people, including messages about health. Further, these studies reveal basic psychological mechanisms that contribute to children's choices among foods, which could lead to effective interventions in the food domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The Magic of Mechanism: Explanation-Based Instruction on Counterintuitive Concepts in Early Childhood

Common-sense intuitions can be useful guides in everyday life and problem solving. However, they can also impede formal science learning and provide the basis for robust scientific misconceptions. Addressing such misconceptions has generally been viewed as the province of secondary schooling. However, in this article, I argue that for a set of foundational but highly counterintuitive ideas (e.g., evolution by natural selection), coherent causal-explanatory instruction-instruction that emphasizes the multifaceted mechanisms underpinning natural phenomena-should be initiated much sooner, in early elementary school. This proposal is motivated by various findings from research in the cognitive, developmental, and learning sciences. For example, it has been shown that explanatory biases that render students susceptible to intuitively based scientific misconceptions emerge early in development. Furthermore, findings also reveal that once developed, such misconceptions are not revised and replaced by subsequently learned scientific theories but competitively coexist alongside them. Taken together, this research, along with studies revealing the viability of early coherent explanation-based instruction on counterintuitive theories, have significant implications for the timing, structure, and scope of early science education.

Predictors of children's food selection: The role of children's perceptions of the health and taste of foods

Food selection, decisions about which foods to eat, is a ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. The aim of this research was to investigate the role of taste versus health perceptions in 4- and 6-year-old children's food selection. In this study, children and young adults were asked to rate the health and presumed taste of foods. Participants were also asked to indicate whether they would eat these foods in a food selection task. Overall, the results showed that taste was a strong predictor of individuals' food selection above and beyond the variance associated with age, health ratings, and interactions between age and presumed taste ratings as well as age and health ratings. These results contribute to our understanding of children's food selection, and the relative importance of a food's taste versus health in the development of these decisions.