What food do children need to grow big and strong? Children’s identification of foods associated with growing big and strong was largely aligned with food that was healthy.
Milk and eggs were discussed as healthy…
“because it has proteins and vitamin c… and carbohydrates.”
But children felt differently about cheese:
“Pizza is not healthy! Because of the cheese!”
“They’ve got too much cheese and only little bits of cheese are healthy.”
Children’s reasoning for why foods were healthy usually centred around them being made of fruit and vegetables:
“I dunno, I just knew, because it’s a vegetable.”
“It’s called tomato soup so it must have tomatoes in it, so it must be healthy.”
Children were mindful of too much sugar being unhealthy, sometimes with precise awareness of the sugar content of food:
“Per 100g of ice cream, 28.5 is pure sugar.”
“I think vegetables are healthier than fruit because fruit has more sugar in it.”
And they often made reference to eating a balanced and healthy diet:
“If you eat too much of the healthy, sometimes it can get a little bit unhealthy for you… If you eat too much of, like pears, it can make you ill.”
They were very aware of the consequences of not eating those foods. Children discussed a range of effects from low energy and cavities to severe ill-health, loss of teeth and death.
“They won’t grown up healthy and strong. And probably they’ll die.”
“It’s really hard to concentrate.”
“They’ll be sad.”
“When you’re hungry all you can think about is food.”
“If you’re eating junk food every day it can make you ill and give you ulcers and there’s no room for healthy stuff.”
“They may get liver disease.”
“My dad said you get cancer and headaches if you eat too much unhealthy foods.”
“They start feeling weak.”
“If you eat all this stuff and you don’t brush your teeth you can get cavities.”
“If you eat too many sweets your teeth will grow yellow.”
“They’ll just fall off because of black things.”
Many children were aware of the impact over time, including intergenerational impacts:
“So that you can grow up to be healthy adults, if you do well when you’re young it will help you when you’re older.”
“It grows you big and strong, if babies eat them when they’re still babies, it makes them grow much faster.”
“Because when they’re older their children would take that up.”
And one child noted the importance of exercise:
“So that they get really fit it’s important that they get lots of exercise too.”
Children also talked about places that children eat outside the home, notably at school. They had different opinions on whether school food is healthy, but overall they believed they had access to healthy options if they choose them:
“Maybe if their mum’s too busy they might go to aftercare?”
“When we go to the food canteen they give us unhealthy food.”
“They never give healthy food.”
“Our school used to serve rubbish and unhealthy food.”
“Every single person in school that I have seen eats at least one sandwich.”
“There is some people who don’t have sandwiches and just have sweets.”
“I have packed lunch pretty much every day, and I always sit with my friends, and I always have a really healthy lunch. An apple, two ham and cheese sandwiches, grapes, and maybe one biscuit.”
They also thought about why some children don’t have all the food they need. They identified money as the most significant reason.
“Some people don’t have enough money to buy food and some people have to go to food banks and some people can’t go to the food bank because their families are too ill.”
A number of children identified food insecurity as a global problem:
“Some people in other countries, in hot countries, don’t have enough food.”
“People in Syria, because they’ve been bombed and all the shops have been bombed, so they can’t get any food.”