Involvement in Cooking during Childhood and Independence in University Students

Abstract

  Independence is an important developmental task in adolescence and has been claimed to consist of multiple factors such as “subjective independence,” “collaborative interpersonal relationships,” and “life management.” We hypothesized that cooking experiences in childhood would help foster independence in adolescence. An original questionnaire survey was administered to 178 university students (53 men and 125 women). Cluster analysis was conducted to classify eating environments of participants and their involvement in cooking during childhood. Scores for independence in adolescence were compared among these clusters using ANOVA. The cluster analysis yielded five clusters. Among them, two groups with high scores for involvement in cooking during childhood had high scores for “cooperative interpersonal relationships” and “life management” in adolescence. These results suggest that involvement in cooking in childhood has a positive influence on two factors of independence in adolescence, thus supporting the hypothesis.