Assessing Electronic Children's Books for Use with Garden Activities and Nutrition Education

• Published in: Journal of child nutrition & management Vol. 45; no. 1
• Main Authors: Geraldes, Lilliana, Spaccarotella, Kim
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: School Nutrition Association 2021
• Subjects: Childrens Literature; Comparative Analysis; Content Analysis; Eating Habits; Electronic Publishing; Food; Gardening; Guidance; Nutrition; Nutrition Instruction; Public Agencies; Teaching Methods
• ISSN: 1559-5676

Purpose/Objectives: Though school gardening programs and curricular activities like reading have been used to enhance nutrition education, little is known about the quality of nutrition messages in freely available electronic books for young children. The purpose of this project was to compare the nutrition messages in these books with the United States Department of Agriculture's nutrition guidance for children. Methods: Lists and databases of popular children's books were used to identify relevant books with a sample of 150 electronic books analyzed. ANOVA was used to compare books that had a central focus on fruits, vegetables, or gardening vs. those that had a background focus. Results: Central themes of fruits, vegetables, and gardens were found in 116 books. Of these, 25% contained fruit themes; 65% fruit and vegetable themes; and 55% fruit, vegetable and garden themes; while 2% had fruit, vegetable, garden and nutrition themes. Books with a central focus had significantly more pages including a combination of fruits, vegetables, and gardens compared to those that only contained single mentions (8.84 +/- 4.41 vs. 4.00 +/- 2.93 pages, p = 0.000). Although characters were always positive towards fruit, characters in multiple books showed negative attitudes towards vegetables. Application to Child Nutrition Professionals: Although electronic children's books provide an inexpensive resource for nutrition programs, they appear to emphasize fruits over vegetables and other foods. School staff incorporating electronic children's books into the curriculum to support nutrition education through gardening should consider collaborating with nutrition program staff to develop appropriate discussion questions so that the nutrition content presented more closely aligns with dietary guidance.