Browsing by Author "Hopia, Nina"

Aims. Eating behaviour in early childhood is known to influence the health and well-being throughout life. Factors influencing the formation of children's food preferences can be either innate or learned. The two most important environments where eating habits are learned are home and preschool. The purpose of this study was to find out what kind of food education is provided at home and in preschool environment. The aim was also to examine the interaction between these two environments. This study also examines how child's personality affects food education. This study is a part of a larger DAGIS-research program that investigates the health of preschool aged children. Methods. The study was conducted as a qualitative study. The data was collected by DAGIS-research team by conducting focus groups in autumn 2014. A total of ten discussions were held with 17 parents and 14 preschool personnel. The data was analysed with qualitative content analysis. Theoretical framework of this study was a socioecological model Results and conclusions. The results show that food education at home is mostly executed by parents' own example during family meals. It was also shown that some parents thought that "common sense" was the best guideline for food education. Food education was also executed by rules and forbiddances. This study shows that in preschool food education is carried out with the help of peer group and by having shared meal times. Preschool personnel also highlighted the importance of child's personality and individuality. The results show that most of the parents and preschool personnel feel that parents are mainly responsible for child's food education. However there was also a group of parents who thought that preschool has the biggest responsibility of child's food education. Interaction between home and preschool seems to be quite minimal and superficial.