Cooking and menu planning confidence of children participating in a cooking camp

Childhood obesity has been steadily increasing in recent decades. This study was conducted at cooking camp to analyze the cooking and menu planning self-efficacy of children and to determine if these skills could influence healthier eating habits. Four surveys were used to evaluate the participants. The Let's Eat Healthy Questionnaire observed significant increases in MyPlate and food group knowledge (p-value<0.0001). The Cooking Skills and Food and Nutrition Skills Questionnaire reported significant increases in the ability to saute (p-value=0.0026) and how to stir fry (p-value=0.0015), and significant increases in agreement for actions like limiting fat intake, limiting sugar intake, and eating more fiber (p-value<0.0001 for all respectively). The Confidence and Motivation Questionnaire reported significant increases in the confidence ranking for preparing healthy snacks (p-value<0.0001), using healthy cooking techniques (p-value<0.0001), eating healthy foods (p-value<0.0001) and having positive feelings toward eating healthy (p-value=0.0012). The Menu Planning Questionnaire revealed a significant decrease in agreement with the statement that planning meals could increase vegetable intake (p=0.008) and a non-significant decrease for fruit intake ((p=1.000). For participants that completely agreed that planning meals could increase fruit and vegetable intakes, it was estimated that fruit servings would increase by roughly 2.8 (pre-questionnaire) to 2.9 (post-questionnaire) servings per day, and vegetable servings would increase from 2.7 (pre-questionnaire) to 2.8 (post-questionnaire) servings per day. Significant increases in confidence to plan a meal, meals for a day, and meals for a week were observed (p=0.0010, p<0.0001 and p<0.0001 respectively). Participants used the Menu Planning Plate website throughout the week to plan meals: 90.2% of participants used the website during camp, 84.31% stated it was easy to use, 52.94% stated that they used the Menu Planning Plate to plan to eat camp recipes at home, 64.71% of participants stated they could plan a meal according to MyPlate guidelines, and 76.47% of participants stated that they would use the Menu Planning Plate after camp. 80.39% of the participants stated that they could teach someone else to plan menus. Teaching children how to plan and cook their own meals could increase the likelihood of choosing healthy foods.