Objective :

To find a practical dietary education method for kindergarten children and their mothers.

Materials and methods :

Kindergarten children were divided into two groups ; the intervention group (kindergarten A) and control group (kindergarten B). To the intervention group, a dietary education program was performed and a questionnaire was done before and 6 months after the intervention. To the control group, the same questionnaire was reformed twice at the same interval. The dietary education program consists of 4 parts ; 1)a questionnaire on the eating habits of children and the consciousness of their mother, 2) a dietary guidance using the Three-Food-Class Sheet, 3)a guidance of vegetable culture, and 4)distribution of current information on the dietary education.

Results :

1) A questionnaire on the eating habits of kindergarten children and the consciousness of their mothers stimulated the interest to the food and nutrition.

2) The frequency to eat local dishes was significantly increased in the intervention group compared to the control group. However, other than this, there were no significant direct effects of the dietary education program.

Conclusion :

Performing a questionnaire to the mothers of kindergarten children per se was proved to be more effective than a dietary education program, motivating them to be interested in the food and nutrition.

The Shokuiku Basic Law was examined in detail, and the viewpoints and substance that were necessary for evaluating school lunch services were made clear, from the standpoint of school lunch services and of the menus. By using an evaluation sheet based on these points, menus of school lunch services were tried to evaluate.

There were two descriptions on school lunch services in the law, and eight descriptions in the Basic Plan for Shokuiku Promotion. When the descriptions on school lunch services and on menus were got in order, the following four viewpoints were obtained ; namely “menu composition”, “nutrition and food configuration”, “food materials and production”, and “others”. With the evaluation sheets based on the gist of them, the menus of lunch services of five elementary schools were evaluated. As the results, the situation of the menu of each school was objectively grasped, and several concrete measures to cope with the menu improvement were specified.

We developed “Hand and Spinning Top” shokuiku program for infants to make them easily understand “Tokushima Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top”. We practically tried the method at two kindergartens and a child care place. When the food quizzes were put out at the final step of the program, 90％ or more correct answers were obtained. Moreover, based on the questionnaire survey to their guardian before and after the nutrition education, it was observed to have changed into valuing “balance” and “amount” of the meal when meal is made. The “Hand and Spinning Top” nutrition education program for infants revealed an effective method in the spread of the Japanese Food Guide Spinning Top, and it is useful for the guardian to make the importance of the meal balance considered when meal is prepared.

In the present study, we conducted an actual condition survey on the dietary habits of infants and parents as a means of finding dietary guidance measures for infants and parents, and examined such measures based on the results. The following findings were obtained from the questionnaire survey : 1) A total of 100％ of infants and 88％ of mothers ate three meals daily, 2) 5％ of infants ate breakfast alone, 3) approximately 70％ of both infants and mothers regularly drank green tea, 4) 68％ of infants ate sweets or chocolate for snacks, 5) approximately 80％ of both infants and mothers considered nutritional balance when eating, and 6) 17％ of infants got up at 8 a.m. or later. Findings based on breakfast pictures were 1) approximately 30％ of infants ate nutritionally balanced meals, and 2) 20％ of infants did not eat vegetables at breakfast.

A 73％ compatibility was observed between breakfast pictures and the infants’ drawings of breakfast. Regarding the match between the awareness of nutritional balance on the questionnaire and pictures of meals, 50％ of infants who responded that they considered the nutritional balance of meals had balanced meals according to breakfast pictures.

Although the present findings showed that mothers had a high level of awareness (regarding nutritional balance in particular) of meals (breakfast only in the present study), their breakfast consisted mostly of processed food and lacked nutritional balance. Therefore, when developing and initially implementing a dietary guidance program for different age groups, it may be necessary to provide parents with basic information on nutritional and food sciences before implementing the program on infants.