Children's Food Choice

By

Emeralda Tria Kartika*

            I will share my experience of understanding my nephews food choice pattern, and each of them has a different pattern. Both of my twin sisters gave birth to my nephews, they are Andra and Danesh, and Dirga and Gibran.

My first nephew, Andra, was approximately 66,07 lb or about 3,1 kg when his first born. Noe he is 4 years old and weight to nearly 20 kg, almost 6 times from his first body weight. His eatery pattern differs from most of kids on his age. Almost every kind of food he likes, but he tends to more likely eat dessert or snacks rather than main food. Every morning he would be the first to see my mom cooking in the kitchen, and his hobby is buying foods and snacks from street vendors or even mini market.  Especially, he likes to buy lontong from passing by street vendors. After eating lontong, he always asks his mom to make him a glass of milk and breakfast. One of his favorite food from my mom's cool is macaroni soup. He eould be gladly sitting on the dining table, enjoying his macaroni soup without noise. Andra also likes fish soup, sour soup, snacks, dim sum, and siomay. Among my 3 other nephews, Andra is the the one who always sit on the dining table eithout us telling him to and eat his meal orderly, even though he is just 4 years old.

Dirga is my second nephew. He is just 10 days younger than Andra, but their food patterns are so far different.  His first body weight when he was born was closely to andra's, but now his weight is quite far from his brother, 15 kg. Dirga is likely to be more anthusiasm when he was given dessert or snacks, and sodifficult to eat main food. It takes such a quite long time for him to finish his main meal, because he doesnt like to eat on the dining table. He would just mess his meal on the plate and make fun of it, rather than eating it micely like his brother. He tends to play during eating or feeding, although it really takes such as long time. My sister every day often makes snacks for her sons, and Dirga is the first one to eat them, number one for every snacks and cakes my sister makes. His favorite is Rainbow pudding and chocolate cake. If his brothers dont take all od the cakes, he will. The different that can be seen from Dirga and Andra aside from their food pattern is their activity.

My third nephew is Danesh. His first body weight was 68 lb or aapproximately 3,2 kg. Rught now his weight is closely to Dirga, 13 kg. Unlike his brother who likes most of every foods, Danesh only like specific food. He doesnt likes most of my mom's cook, only her sour soup. He will get enthuthiasm if he eats the sour soup with fried fish. Danesh also likes snacks and cakes my sister makes. One his prominent likes is fruit, especially apples, banana, snake fruit, and grapes.

My last nephew is Gibran. His first body weight is same as Danesh's. He is now 2 years old but his food pattern is almost same as Andra's. He really likes main food but he prefers milk due to his age. He could drink milk 6 to 7 bottles a day but his daily intake is also high. Because he is the youngest, he tends to follow what his brothers eat.

These different food or eatery pattern turn to be caused by my sisters eatery pattern during pregnant. Their intakes were good during their pregnant times, but they have different choices on food.  Like Andra and Danesh, my first sister didnt consume main food pretty much when carrying Danesh but pretty much did when carrying Andra.

Even though my 4 nephews have different food patterns, they are pretty solid in choosing food product during shopping. Their tendency in choosing food products based on the product's design. Andra, Danesh, and Dirga will choose milk product because the design consists of their favoite cartoon or superhero characters, for example spiderman. These kids also follow one another during making food choices, if one of them buy a candy the others would follow and so it happens if one of them buy ice cream, the others would also but it.

Parents play an important role in the formation of food habits and preferences of young children. They can influence their children's food choice by making specific foods available, by acting as models for their children and by their behaviour in specific situations. Children tend to be afraid of new foods and do not readily accept them. However, experience is known to enhance preference, and earlier experiences of a particular food are the major determinants of the development of children's food acceptance patterns. Thus, parents should be encouraged to make healthy foods easily available to the child and serve these foods in positive mealtime situations in order to help their child to develop healthy food habits.

* Mahasiswa Ilmu dan Teknologi Pangan Universitas Bakrie