Children and Youths' Perception of Food: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis

Children's and adolescents' food experiences are inadequately understood. A concept analysis is needed to help advance a conceptual definition of children and adolescents' perception of food.

This work aims to clarify the concept of food perception among children and adolescents following Rodgers's evolutionary method for concept analysis.

A search on two databases, CINAHL and PubMed, was conducted between October 2020 and April 2021. The key search terms used were: perception, awareness, recognition, child, adolescent, food, nutrition. Inclusion criteria were: English language, scholarly/peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2020, studies of children and adolescents' perceptions of food using qualitative or quantitative or mixed methods. A total of fifteen articles that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed. The coding process and thematic analysis followed the phases of Rodgers's Evolutionary Method. Thematic analysis revealed common themes related to the concept, attributes, antecedents, and consequences.

Four attributes were identified, including food taste and appearance, availability, cost and convenience, time effort and nutritional value. The antecedents are parental, social, emotional, and cognitive development influences. The consequences include adequate nutrition, healthy lifestyle, growth, and malnutrition.

This is the first study exploring the concept of food perceptions among children and adolescents, examining the key elements that determine and influence this concept including the influences of culture.

Further studies exploring the use of this concept among other disciplines and specific clinical settings are needed to allow nursing researchers to perform more tailored and valuable future interventions around this topic and this population.