Cooking TV show can help children make healthy food choices, Dutch study reveals

06 Jan 2020 --- Children are nearly three times more likely to make a positive food choice after watching a child-oriented cooking television show that featured healthy offerings. This is according to a new study conducted by Dutch researchers, which found that cooking programs which promote healthy eating may affect the food choices of children and could be an effective method to improve their dietary intake.

“Early exposure to cooking can have many benefits on children’s health, at least when healthy foods are cooked. If children have more knowledge and skills about how to prepare different forms of vegetables, they are more likely to consume them. A lot of evidence has shown that a great variety of chronic diseases can be prevented or overcome by our eating behavior,” Dr. Frans Folkvord, Assistant Professor at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Language, Communication and Cognition, tells NutritionInsight.

Published in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior by Elsevier, the study set out to test the effects of a cooking television show on healthy food decisions. Researchers asked 125 children aged ten to 12 years old at five schools in the Netherlands to watch ten minutes of a Dutch television cooking program designed for children. One group of children was instructed to watch a program using healthy foods, while another group saw a program using unhealthy foods. A control group was not exposed to a cooking program.

Dr Folkvord affirms that early exposure to healthy food preperation can have a positive effect on adult health.After the ten minute program, the children could then choose from two healthy or two unhealthy snacks – an apple, a few pieces of cucumber or a handful of potato chips or salted mini pretzels based on the Dutch Nutrition Centre recommendations for children – as a reward for participating. It was found that test group of children who watched the cooking program with healthy foods had a higher probability of selecting a healthy snack after watching the show, compared to the children who watched the cooking program including unhealthy foods.

“My motivation to conduct this study is that a large number of Dutch children do not consume enough fruit and vegetables, although most people are aware of the positive benefits of these foods for health,” Dr. Folkvord further explains. He states that the findings confirmed the theoretical expectations that his research team had beforehand. However, the size of the effect was unexpected.

Besides cooking programs, children can positively experience nutrition education through the reduction or prohibition of food marketing for unhealthy foods, Dr. Folkvord continues. He also advocates for stimulating the promotion of healthier foods, reducing prices for healthy foods and using school and at-home interventions for healthy food consumption. Moreover, nutritional experts should make use of all instruments available, such as interactive cooking, teaching programs, marketing and peer-based learning, to ensure children develop a positive relationship with fresh produce and healthy eating.

“Schools represent the most effective and efficient way to reach a large section of an important target population, which includes children as well as school staff and the wider community. Positive peer and teacher modeling can encourage students to try new foods for which they exhibited distaste previously,” he comments. Indeed, previous research has revealed how nutritional education is decisively lacking in medical studies across the globe, which can result in physicians missing out on possibilities to provide patients with comprehensive counseling on nutrition and dietary behavior. 

Technology’s influence on children
While this study highlights the positive effects that television can have on the study participants’ decision-making process, it also holds potential to negatively influence children’s nutritional behavior. In November, a report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) revealed that one hour of television exposes children to ten junk food ads. The adverse effects of junk food advertising targeting children have been previously flagged by research, with obesity being the main cause of concern. 

Especially children are susceptible to be influenced by television advertising.As childhood obesity rates continue to climb globally, turning toward technology could help diversify children’s diets with more vegetables. The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Food is funding the See & Eat project, which includes free e-books for children and families to help address the age-old issue of fussy eating in children.

Future research
The Dutch study indicates a need for future research to focus on the effectiveness of cooking programs to affect long-term food choices, as these strategies contain an essential educational component. The research team encourages more naturalistic future studies to replicate the current study in a home setting where children can eat while watching TV. 

The study also only assessed direct food choices. As such, repeated exposure and longitudinal intake is something future research will need to address. While separate analyses with class or schools included as factors did not lead to different results, the current study did not take into account clustering effects and the study affirms that significance may be overstated.

“The likelihood of consuming fruits and vegetables among youth and adults is strongly related to knowing how to prepare most fruits and vegetables. Increased cooking skills among children can positively influence their consumption of fruit and vegetables in a manner that will persist into adulthood,” Dr. Folkvord concludes.

By Anni Schleicher