Do Parents’ Food Skills Pass On to Their Children’s Cooking Skills?
Do Parents’ Food Skills Pass On to Their Children’s Cooking Skills?
This study looked at whether parents’ food skills are passed on to their children’s cooking skills over time.
What We Did
Researchers studied 135 families in the Guelph Family Health Study, including 158 children and their parents (121 mothers and 66 fathers). They looked at:
- Parents’ own food skills, such as planning meals and preparing food
- Children’s own cooking skills, reported by the children when they were around 9 years old on average
Parents are important role models in the kitchen, so it seems reasonable that skilled parents would have children who are more confident cooks. Building cooking skills early in life is linked to better eating habits later on, so researchers wanted to test whether parents’ skills carried over to their children.
What We Found
What We Can Learn From This
Skilled parents did not necessarily have skilled children:
- Both mothers and fathers rated their own food skills as high, and children rated their cooking skills as fairly high too.
- Parents’ food skills were not actually linked to their children’s cooking skills.
This suggests that being a skilled cook may not be enough on its own to pass those skills on to children. Getting children directly involved in hands-on cooking, rather than just cooking for them, may be what helps them build their own skills.
Limitations
Both parents and children rated their own skills, which may not perfectly match their true abilities. Most participating families were White and from higher-income households, so the findings may not apply to all families.
Read the full article published Here.
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