1973 Volume 24 Issue 8 Pages 739-744
Children often show the particular dislikes of food in their early childhood and many mothers come to get advice on this problems. In this paper, the author tries to clarify its etiology and to study how to cure it.
As for the investigating procedure, the following two methods were applied to 252 fiveyear-old children in three different kindergardens.
First, questionaires were sent to their mothers three times within a year to see the changes in their answers. Secondly, in order to follow the mothers' attitudes toward their children, the author interviewed 3 or 4 times within a year and a half with eight mothers who complained about their children's dislikes of some food.
From the result of the first investigation, we found out that the five-year-olds generally have more or less certain likes or dislikes of food and it is quite normal. Rather, among children who said no preferences for foods, small eatens and ones who have poor appetite were found. Examining the results of the interviews, it reveals that children tend to show some kind of dislike for certain foods and cuisine around the age of three. This tendency can be considered to develop along with their egos. If their mothers have great anxiety at this time about this phenomenon, they become over-protective or over-indulgent with their children and conversely, these attitudes may encourage an unbalanced diet.
Therefore in helping the problems of unbalanced diet, we conclude that it is more effective to help mothers to get insight of the desirable attitudes for child rearing than teaching the mere techniques of cooking meals.
