Seeking Insight into Adolescents' Nutrition Understanding, Inferences, and Food Choices

This study qualitatively explored 7-12 year old kids' knowledge and understanding of nutritional information, and their use of nutritional information appearing on food packages. Results of this study demonstrate wide variance in children's levels of nutrition knowledge, most often related to curricular decisions and the type of educational program the child attends. Both nuclear and extended family members appear to have significant influence on children's nutrition knowledge, and family members tend to reinforce nutrition concepts learned at school. Adolescents have limited knowledge about simple nutrition information, but lack understanding of more complex nutrient information. They often do not actively search for nutrition information on product packages, but use other package information to cue their understanding of the nutritional value of the food, or they ask others' opinions of whether they should choose the particular food item.