Seeing Food Through Young Children’s Eyes

Children’s Representations of Parental Feeding Strategies and Food Choice Reasoning

Dados Bibliográficos

ID15714693
AutoresIrith Freedman (0000-0003-1134-9147, The Max Stern Yezreel Valley College, autor correspondente), Anat Gesser‐Edelsburg (0000-0003-4467-8799, University of Haifa), Billie Eilam (0000-0002-7021-6363, University of Haifa)
Ano2026
Volume13
Fascículo3
Páginas347-347
Data de publicação2026-02-27
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoChildren (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2227-9067 • E-ISSN: 2227-9067
EditoraMultidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (PUBLISHER • CH)
DOI10.3390/children13030347
PMID41897060
OpenAlexW7131860919
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas76

Background/Objectives : Research on children's eating has primarily focused on parental feeding practices and dietary outcomes, with less attention to how young children themselves understand parental food-related messages and relate them to their own food choices. Recognizing children as active participants in food socialization, this study aimed to examine preschool children's representations of parental feeding strategies alongside their expressed food-choice considerations. Methods : A qualitative, exploratory, multi-method design was employed within a constructivist framework. Forty kindergarten children aged 4 years 10 months to 5 years 8 months participated in individual, play-based sessions conducted in familiar educational settings. Data were generated using two complementary tools: a doll role-play task eliciting children's representations of parental feeding strategies and a simulated grocery shopping task eliciting food-choice considerations. All sessions were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results : During role-play, children frequently portrayed parents as emphasizing health-related arguments, control, and negotiation when guiding food intake. Less frequently, they represented strategies such as encouragement to try, deception, or references to body weight. In contrast, during the food-choice task, children's selections were primarily guided by personal preference, with health considerations mentioned less often. For most participants, the feeding strategies attributed to parents did not closely align with the considerations guiding their own food choices. Conclusions : The findings highlight young children's active and selective engagement with parental feeding discourse and underscore the contextual nature of food-related meaning-making in early childhood. Rather than reflecting a straightforward transmission of parental messages, children's food choices appear shaped by situational affordances and perceived autonomy, supporting child-centered approaches to nutrition education and health promotion

Affordance · Food choice · Negotiation · Reflexivity · Situational ethics · Task (project management · Thematic analysis · Breastfeeding Practices and Influences · Child Nutrition and Feeding Issues · Obesity, Physical Activity, Diet