Children’s Understanding of Food and Its Functions: A Preliminary Study of the Development of Concepts of Nutrition*

Children’s developing conceptions of how the body functions nutritionally were examined. Two differenttasks provided converging findings. One taskasked children to judge the causes of cetioin end states (e.g., why X is fat). The second task asked children to (udge the result of certain contrasting diets (e.g., twin-l eats twice as much candy as twin-2). The results evidenced; (a) systematic misconceptions on the part of kindergartenen that were overcame by sixth grade; and (b) other fairly sophisticated conceptions present even at the youngest ages tested. The research provides a needed first step toward describing the naive theories of nutrition possessed by children at different oges. Knowledge of childrens’ theories of nutrition ore essential for optimal planning of curricula and methods in nutrition education.