Examination of Illustrated Storybooks In Terms of Nutritional Habits and Eating Behaviors

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the illustrated storybooks for early childhood in terms of children's eating habits and eating behaviors. In the research designed with a qualitative research model, document analysis was used. For the sample selection of the research purposeful sampling method was used. 50 children books published in the last 15 years, which are about early childhood, on Turkish or translation, nutrition and eating behaviors are examples of the research. The data were collected between February 2020 and April 2020 with the "Book Evaluation Form" developed by researchers and shaped in line with expert opinions. According to the findings; It was determined that most of the books include “all food groups and all meals”, and there are no “nutrition and eating problems”. While “eating appropriately for developmental periods” is the most common positive eating behavior, “wrong food preferences” are the most common negative behaviors. While the parent figure is “mother” in most of the books, information about the parent's perception of the child's nutrition is not found in most of the books. In most of the books, situations such as “anger, huffiness and frustration towards the child and self due to malnutrition during the meal” were not detected, and the behavior of “giving food to children outside of mealtime” was not encountered. "Feeding the child by frightening/threatening or using physical/psychological violence" behavior is seen in a book, and_in most of the books it was found that the parent did not exhibit a “verbally positive persuasion attitude”. While the parent is not a model in most of the books, the behavior of using food as a reward was found in some of the books.