Unawareness of Food Neophobia-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp.com

Question: Discover the level of awareness among Parents as primary caregiver about food Neophobia. Answer: Introduction: This assignment is about reviewing a research article, Primary caregivers of young children are unaware of food neophobia and food preference development, written by Julie Norton and Maria M. Raciti, published in Health Promotion Journal of Australia. This involves ascertaining and analysing the appropriateness of the key components of research, that is, the purpose of research/ research question, research design and methodology used, sample size and sampling technique, key consideration in selecting participants, rigour and ethical consideration. It further confers the strength and weaknesses of the given article. It also examines the appropriateness of findings and conclusion with regard to the aim of research. Aim of Research and Research Methodology: The aim of this research article was to discover the level of awareness among parents as primary caregiver about food neophobia and the way preferences in food develop in children aged between 1 to 2.5 years. As stated in article1, food neophobia is the unwillingness or avoidance of eating new or strange food in young children. It is biological phenomenon in children which protects them in trying strange things by being suspicious of new food as they begin to explore their surroundings. Food preference is developed in children at early age because of exposure of particular type of food. The food intake of children is very much determined according to their food preferences. This issue is important because the repeated exposure to non-core foods can be seen at high level in the majority of children today which is negatively affecting their health. Awareness among primary caregiver about this issue is very essential to encourage and enable them to increase exposure of core foods in the ir young children. The research was qualitative in nature and involves case study methodology. As mentioned by Choy2, the qualitative research is a kind of social research which involves studying about the qualitative attributes like behaviour, feelings and perceptions of people of specific group. It does not use numerical data for study purpose. Case study method is quite popular in social science research. It implicates analysing specific issues considering specific organisation, situation or environment'.3 Sampling Technique: The participants were selected using snowball sampling technique. Babbie4 explained that, in snowball sampling a few selected participants of researcher provide reference of other participants who might be eligible for the research purpose of researcher. It is a kind of non- probability sampling because researcher uses his own judgement while selecting the participants and selects those who meets the selection criteria. The researcher in this study selected the primary care-giver of children aged between 1- 2.5 years, who are primary in authority for deciding about the kind of food to be provided to the young child and is generally present at the time the child eats. Although this sampling method saves time and efforts of researcher, but since the participants involve the known persons of chosen participants they might have similar or identical thought process, the sample would not be able to truly represent the population and may involve biasness. Further it is not possible to defin e and control errors in sampling and make statistical inferences in this technique.5 Data Collection Method, Process and Reliability: Sample size was of 24 participants. To attain diversity in demographic profile of participants the cases were selected purposively. Information was collected mainly through interview method which involves questions related to history of eating behaviour of child including breastfeeding duration, reflux, and instigation of solids, allergies, disliking or intolerance towards any particular food, status related to self-feeding and present intake. It also involves asking about the opinion of participants regarding the kind of food a child should be provided with on a daily basis. Further, to investigate the correct thought process of participants, information was also collected using projective techniques and observation. Given the qualitative research that too in primary care verbatim transcribed data was gathered which involves considering recoding word to word information, as derived while interviewing including fillers, repetitions, corrections, tone of speaking, timing, speed, pause s and also comprises observing the body language, facial expression, and gesture . This ensures accuracy and reliability of the data collected and helps to identify accurately the real thought process and behaviour of participants.6 Thus the research was conducted in rigorous manner and data redundancy was achieved. Ethical consideration: In view of Coughlan7 et al., whenever a research involves interaction with people or animal, the issue of ethics always comes at first. An individual must have full authority to decide on his own whether to participate or not in research without any force from part of researcher and should have full knowledge about the kind of investigation being conducted and purpose behind it, they should be assured of confidentially of information derived from them. Further the research process or questions must not harm or hurt the individual mentally or physically and every participants to be treated equally irrespective of their status. This requires that a prior approval from Ethics Approval Committee must be taken for conducting research by submitting the details of research, the methodology and procedure to be followed in research. The same has been followed by the researcher in this study by taking approval from Human Research Ethics Committee of Australia. It is a central body in Australia to oversee the ethical requirements of any research involving humans.8 Consent forms were also signed from participants prior to commencement of interview, thus ethical consideration has been duly complied with. Strengths and Weaknesses of Article: The strength of this article lies on the fact that it pointed out the major issue prevailing in Australia, which was not much recognised by other researchers. However because of this extensive literature review was absent which form a basis for framing an appropriate research methodology. Being a qualitative research the article helped in understanding the knowledge, awareness, and attitude of parents regarding problem of food neophobia and development of food preference among their young children, how they have been dealing with this problem till now, their thinking approach and opinion about ways to make their children eat core foods. It pointed out the unawareness among the general public regarding the concerned issue which will induce government, other researchers to think of ways to raise awareness of the said problem at large level, as this issue is one of the leading cause behind the rising problem of obesity in Australia. Another positive aspect of research was to use project ive technique as part of data collection procedure. This technique helps in disclose the hidden thoughts of participants and bring about such responses which participants are unable or unwilling to express if asked directly. It is widely used technique in a qualitative research.9 Examination of similarities, differences and themes across the cases through cross-case analysis helped in understanding the behaviour of primary caregiver in detail. But this article also inherent the general weakness of a qualitative research as described by Atieno10, it is difficult to analysis the information in absence of any numerical data. It lacks generalizability of findings. Further the multiple perspectives of individuals make it difficult to reach at the bottom line or particular conclusion. Conclusion can be highly biased as per the judgement of researcher. Lack of proper documentation and application of reliability tests may not provide reliability to the findings. The participants may too be bias and may not quote true information in order to present positive side of their attitude. Another major weakness is that the researcher used very small sample size of only 24 participants. A small sample size does not truly represent the entire population. It affects the reliability of results of study because it may leads to higher variability, which is discussed by Simmons11. As the research was cross- sectional it requires a sample size to be large enough so that it satisfactorily represents the population and enable to estimate the predominance of any condition of interest with higher precision. In addition, a cross sectional study does not assist in establishing a cause and effect relationship. It might prove difficult in interpreting the true cause of sense of any identified association. Data collected at a particular point of time may not account for the past of future behaviour which affects the generalizability of the data.12 Since the research was directed in a particular geographic region of Australia, it may also leads to presentation of single view may be bec ause those few persons had identical view point which may differ from the true view point of population. The aim of this research was to determine only the level of awareness among the primary caregiver about the problem of food neophobia and development of food preference in young children but it did not suggested how to make people aware of the problem at large level and different ways the parents can try to develop the likely preference of core foods for healthy future of their children. Rising awareness among parents regarding food neophobia and food preference development is very essential as in view of Spahiu et al.13 parents have a key role in influencing their children life and shaping their behaviour, including eating behaviour. Conclusion: The researchers, through this study found that participants were unaware about food neophobia. Although a few participants did know about the changes in eating behaviour in young children around age of one year they were not familiar with the term food neophobia. Most of the parents were also unaware about how fondness for food develops in young children. The study examined the means, which parents generally uses to encourage their children to eat core foods and found that primary caregiver mainly focuses on making their children eat core foods rather than actually liking it thus uses non-core foods as bribe or reward for the same purpose. Some people were of view that eating something is better than nothing thus seems to carry on with exposer to non-core food as food intake in their children and doesnt seems to be much concerned about the issue. Some participants who were concerned didnt want to provide non-core food to their children was not because it may cultivate preference for such food but because it has negative impact on the behaviour and health of children. Although the findings and conclusion of research achieved the aim it was designed for, but the problem was that first of all the small sample size does not seem to prove sufficient to examine the general awareness regarding the problem in public, secondly, 23 out of 24 participants were female, and females have different approach and attitude and knowledge toward any issue in comparison to males which further leaded a biased approach in data collection. Another problem is that, it may happen that the behaviour of respondents according to their mood, situations or other surrounding factors at the time of interview or examination is significantly different from their general behaviour which may further affect the reliability of information. Further a more detailed research could have been possible to examine in-depth views of primary care about the issue concerned this might have helped in identifying more approaches used by parents in making their children eat core-foods besides than those discussed in article. It would have helped in designing and teaching a better approach to solve this issue. References: Norton J, Raciti MM. Primary caregivers of young children are unaware of food neophobia and food preference development. Health Promot J Austr. 2016; 27, 155-158. Choy L.T. The Strength and weaknesses of Research Methodology: Comparison and Complimentary between Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. IOSR -JHSS. 2014; 19(4): 99-104. Yin RK. Applications of Case Study Research. 3rd USA.: SAGE Publications; 2012. Babbie E. The Basis of Social Research. 5th USA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning; 2009. Moule P. Making sense of research in nursing, health and social care. 5th London: SAGE Publication; 2015. Bailey J. First steps in qualitative data analysis: transcribing. Family Practice. 2008; 25(2): 127-131. Coughlan M, Cronin P, Ryan F. Step- by- step guide to critiquing research. Part1: quantitative research. Br J Nurs. 2007; 16(11):658-653. National Health and Medical Research Council. Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) [homepage on the Internet]. C2017 [updated 2017 July 7; cited 2017 August 4]. Available from https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/health-ethics/human-research-ethics-committees-hrecs Keegan S. Qualitative Research: Good Decision Making Through Understanding People, Cultures and Markets. Londan: Kogan Page Publishers. 2009. Atieno O. P. An analysis of the strengths and limitation of qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. PEC. 2013; 13: 13-18. Simmons A. E. The disadvantages of a small sample size. Cited 2017 May 13. Available from https://www.ehow.co.uk/info_8448532_disadvantages-small-sample-size.html Allen M, editor. The SAGE encyclopaedia of communication research methods. USA: SAGE Publication. 2017. Spahiu E, Citozi R, Zekaz E. Healthy eating behaviour on children and the role of family modelling. Paper presented at: 8th INSHS International Christmas Sport Scientific Conference. Proceedings of International Network of Sport and Health Science; 2013 December 5-7; Szombathely, Hungary