Kiddipedia
Jamie (not his real name) is six years old and has been having monthly cooking lessons with me since he was about 4.5 years old. He loves it. We have made a myriad of different foods together: pizza, crackers, soups, pancakes, pies, cakes, hummus, burgers, meat balls… his confidence has grown a lot over this time. Not just as a cook – he’s a proficient user of the cook top and stick blender, and is familiar with kitchen staples and common utensils – but he is also a confident eater. In the last couple of sessions, I observed him not seeking the adults’ approval for his decision of what to eat and what not to eat from what we’ve cooked. He finally learned that there will be no criticism if he doesn’t. And, oppositely from what you might be thinking, his acceptance of new foods has grown by the same rate, I’d say.
Research shows time-and-time-again that involving children in cooking is beneficial to their development and health in several ways.
“Eat your veggies”
To tick off the list the number one reason of anxiety in parents of young children – eating their veggies!! -, several studies demonstrate that children who are involved in making meals, be it by cooking or by helping out with shopping, setting up the dining table or washing up, show higher preference for vegetables and eat more healthily in general than children who are not involved in it.
I know that parents of tweenagers and teenagers may find it hard to get the kids to work… because that’s how they are going to see it: a chore that they will try all they can to get out of… but, like everything else their parents want them to do, persistence and consistency will eventually (well… hopefully) break their resistance and they will get along with it.
On the other hand, if you’re still dealing with toddlers and pre-schoolers, you’re in luck as they still have that precious curiosity and love to be involved in things, so that’s the perfect time to teach them the chores of food preparation. And they can do a lot!
I work with that age group – Jamie is one of them – and never stop being fascinated by how eager they always are to get their little hands dirty with food ingredients. I also work once a week as an educator in a childcare centre and, every single time I walk in the door, a swarm of pre-schoolers circle me in the foyer asking “What are we cooking today, Fern?”, so I know that if I haven’t prepared anything beforehand, I’ll have to get creative with what I find in the pantry!
This behaviour in young children fills my heart with joy because I know that the younger they are when they learn how to cook the more likely they will grow into healthy adults with healthful dietary habits.
Science is on your side
Researchers in the UK tested different ages for someone to being initiated in cooking that would make a significant difference in their eating habits in adult life. Published in 2016, the study indicated that learning cooking skills as children (twelve years old and younger), especially if learned from their mothers, has a lifelong greater positive impact than when learned later, in their teenage or early adulthood.
The same study also found that those who learned to cook as children, feel more confident, creative and identify themselves as “cooks” when adults. They also waste less food, eat less take away food and eat more fruit than those who started cooking later in life. Even though showing that learning cooking skills in their teen and young adult years will also make a significant positive difference in their eating habits in adulthood.
One more pearl of this study is the finding that learning to cook with mothers makes a greater impact on the children’s progression into a healthier dietary pattern in adulthood. I love that fact! Another study done in Japan about three years ago also shows that young children (up to six years of age) eat a greater variety of foods when they learn to cook with their parents than those who don’t.
So, the younger a child learns how to cook, the more likely it will have a long-lasting positive impact in their dietary habits in adulthood. Even better if they learn to cook with their mums and dads.
But some parents have safety concerns when it comes to bringing their little child in to the kitchen. Once again, science comes in to reassure us that there are benefits in this too. Reasonable and age appropriate risk-taking is important for children to develop awareness and problem-solving skills. With my children, in the childcare environment, at every cooking session, we go through the safety rules to reinforce awareness of “hot and sharp bits”, and provide appropriate utensils and tasks for the children’s age and capabilities.
For additional help on what children of different ages can do in the kitchen, have a look at the below infographic created by Fiona Lavelle from the Institute for Global Food Security (Queen’s University Belfast, Ireland).
These are just some of the benefits that children and parents can reap by early introduction to cooking skills. We can add to that fun, pride, bonding…
If you’re stuck for ideas to get started, try an easy one, muesli: dry ingredients mixed with little hands. 😉
Fern Rodrigues is a children’s nutritionist at Eat Play Learn Nutrition and specialises in avoidant eating (aka fussy eating). She offers one-on-one programs and group consultations for families, and professional development workshops for early years educators and cooks.
References
Cooking with Kids Positively Affects Fourth Graders’ Vegetable Preferences and Attitudes and Self-Efficacy for Food and Cooking. (Study, 2013, USA). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3868269/
Child assessments of vegetable preferences and cooking self-efficacy show predictive validity with targeted diet quality measures. (Study, 2019, USA). https://bmcnutr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40795-019-0286-7
Learning cooking skills at different ages: a cross-sectional study. (Study, 2016, UK). https://ijbnpa.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12966-016-0446-y
Parent–child cooking meal together may relate to parental concerns about the diets of their toddlers and preschoolers: a cross-sectional analysis in Japan. (Study, 2019, Japan). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6862729/
Parents’ Perceptions of Risk and the Influence on Children’s Everyday Activities. (Study, 2013, Australia) https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-013-9891-2
Children as young as two can learn to cook – here are the kitchen skills they can get to grips with. (Article, 2021, Ireland). https://theconversation.com/children-as-young-as-two-can-learn-to-cook-here-are-the-kitchen-skills-they-can-get-to-grips-with-144318
