In order for children in a nursing facility for children (children admitted to a facility) to learn how to independently form good dietary habits, we performed a basic study necessary for the development and creation of a practical and effective shokuiku (food and nutrition education) system and program. The subjects of the study were children (aged 3-18 years old) in 14 nursing facilities for children in Nagoya, Japan. Aimed at all of the subjects, we performed a fact-finding study on shokuiku guidance, a physical examination, a technical evaluation study of cooking skills based on cooking training drills, and a questionnaire study on awareness related to shokuiku. In thee questionnaire awareness study, we compared the results with those of children (children living at home) enrolled at S elementary school in Nagoya. In this study, the younger subjects in the study, aged 3 to 5 years-old, showed a good understanding of food and nutrition, showing 95.8% accurate answers in a quiz. Compared with the children living at home, the subject children in the first years of elementary school, aged six to eight years-old, demonstrated significantly low scores (P < 0.05) in a discrimination quiz on the names of vegetables, showing that they didn’t know many of the names. We also found that 83.1% of the subject children in the nursing facility answered “yes” to a question about whether or not they washed their hands before meals, a significantly high percentage (P < 0.05), compared with 52.7% for the children living at home, showing the effect of guidance conducted at the nursing facility. In addition, we found that the affirmative attitude towards food decreased significantly (P < 0.001) as the children grew older, as the percentages of children who answered “yes” to the question “Are meals fun?” were 96.4% for younger children aged 3 to 5 years-old, 81.7% for children in the first years of elementary school, 64.7% for children in the later years of elementary school, aged 9 to 11 years-old, and 50.0% for junior and high school students, aged 12 to 17 years-old. However, the affirmative attitude towards food was higher for children with more experience with cooking, and they showed less anxiety about cooking their own food after becoming self-reliant.
The results of this study suggested that the promotion of more participation in food and nutrition related programs at nursing facilities for children would be effective guidance for younger children and children in the first years of elementary school, and also that these years are an important time period when such children can learn about food and nutrition efficiently. In addition, we considered that more proposals for experience in technical cooking experience would be effective for children in the later years of elementary school.

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