Cooking with children is common in many households, but the frequency and meaning of participation vary by country, age, and study design. In a 2010 Alberta survey, about 30% of grade-5 children helped prepare home meals at least daily, while 85% of U.S. parents in the 2020 Census Bureau survey said they shared dinner with children at least five times per week. Other studies connect cooking lessons with higher self-efficacy, while showing that willingness to eat vegetables does not automatically change.
Contents
- How often children help prepare food
- Cooking involvement and food preferences
- What changed during the 2020 pandemic period
- Lessons, confidence, and recipe acceptance
- Parent-child cooking and vegetable outcomes
- Cooking within family meal routines
How often children help prepare food
The Alberta evidence comes from a grade-5 survey conducted in 2010. Children answered a five-category question ranging from “never or almost never” to “several times a day on most days.” The results show that helping in the kitchen was widespread, although daily participation was less common than occasional participation.
- 12.4% reported never or almost never helping prepare home meals.
- 24.1% helped once per month.
- 32.2% helped one to three times per week.
- 16.5% helped once per day.
- 14.7% helped several times per day.
The study reported that 83% to 93% of grade-5 children helped with home meal preparation at least monthly, depending on the food-preparation measure used. It also described about 30% as helping at least once daily. These figures describe Alberta children in 2010, rather than children everywhere today.
The same research used a six-question healthy-food self-efficacy scale ranging from 6 to 24 points. That measurement matters because helping with food can represent more than time spent near a stove: the study also examined how capable children felt when making healthy-food choices and handling preparation tasks.
Cooking involvement and food preferences
Among the Alberta grade-5 children, the mean fruit-preference score was 8.91 on a standardized 10-point scale. The mean vegetable-preference score was 6.64 on the same type of 10-point measure, and the mean healthy-food self-efficacy score was 18.54 on the 6-to-24-point scale. These are group averages, not targets for individual children.
The study compared children who never helped with children who helped at different frequencies. In the unadjusted model, monthly preparation was associated with a 0.35-point higher fruit-preference score, a 0.30-point higher vegetable-preference score, and 1.24 additional self-efficacy points compared with never helping.
More frequent involvement showed larger reported differences in the same unadjusted comparisons:
| Meal-preparation frequency | Fruit preference difference | Vegetable preference difference | Self-efficacy difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Once per month | +0.35 | +0.30 | +1.24 |
| 1–3 times per week | +0.63 | +0.56 | +1.98 |
| Once per day | +0.63 | +0.68 | +2.28 |
| Several times per day | +0.76 | +1.05 | +3.07 |
The comparisons are associations, not proof that cooking caused the differences. The Alberta analysis was cross-sectional, so it cannot establish whether cooking involvement improved preferences and confidence, whether confident children were more likely to help, or whether other family factors influenced both.
What changed during the 2020 pandemic period
A cross-continental survey compared parents’ reported cooking and child-inclusion measures before COVID-19 with responses collected in May–June 2020. The regions were the island of Ireland, Great Britain, New Zealand, and a U.S. sample. The survey used convenience samples and six-point inclusion scales, so these results should not be treated as a representative post-pandemic trend.
Mean midweek cooking time increased in three regions and changed only slightly in the U.S. sample:
- In the island of Ireland, the mean rose from 41.34 to 51.24 minutes.
- In Great Britain, it rose from 32.71 to 39.18 minutes.
- In New Zealand, it rose from 34.84 to 43.77 minutes.
- In the U.S. sample, it changed from 25.94 to 27.82 minutes.
Weekend cooking time also rose in the island of Ireland, Great Britain, and New Zealand. The means changed from 60.83 to 69.04 minutes in the island of Ireland, from 42.34 to 46.15 minutes in Great Britain, and from 40.17 to 48.25 minutes in New Zealand. In the U.S. sample, the mean changed from 29.25 to 31.15 minutes.
Parents also reported more inclusion of children in everyday meal preparation in three of the four samples. The mean six-point score rose from 3.07 to 4.07 in the island of Ireland, from 2.87 to 3.31 in Great Britain, and from 3.37 to 3.79 in New Zealand. The U.S. score was 3.53 both before and during the survey period.
Baking followed a similar pattern in the non-U.S. samples. The mean six-point score rose from 2.44 to 3.38 in the island of Ireland, from 2.53 to 2.97 in Great Britain, and from 2.87 to 3.40 in New Zealand. In the U.S. sample, the score changed from 3.28 to 3.38. These are before-and-during comparisons from May–June 2020, not evidence that the changes continued after that period.
Lessons, confidence, and recipe acceptance
A 2023 virtual culinary curriculum delivered six lessons and taught children to prepare six recipes. The evaluation measured cooking self-efficacy, culinary literacy, willingness to eat vegetables, and ratings of traditional and mushroom- or portabella-based recipes.
Cooking confidence increased significantly after the lessons: the reported test was t(38) = -16.064, with p < 0.001. The total culinary-literacy survey score also increased significantly, with t(38) = -8.088 and p < 0.001. In other words, the program evaluation found strong evidence of improvement on its measured skill and literacy outcomes.
Recipe acceptance was more selective. Children’s ratings did not differ significantly between traditional pocket pizza and mushroom pocket pizza, with t(9) = 0.712 and p = 0.494. Traditional macaroni and cheese was rated higher than mushroom macaroni and cheese, with t(12) = 3.600 and p = 0.004. Traditional beef fajitas were rated higher than portabella fajitas, with t(14) = 2.739 and p = 0.008.
The lessons did not produce a significant change in willingness to eat vegetables. The reported result was t(38) = -0.168 and p = 0.437. This distinction is useful for families: learning to cook and feeling more confident can improve without an immediate measurable change in vegetable willingness.
Parent-child cooking and vegetable outcomes
Another program evaluation followed children and parents during a 2018–2019 study period. At baseline, 15% of control children and 25% of intervention children were in the overweight BMI-percentile category. The corresponding obese-category shares were 35% of control children and 22% of intervention children. These baseline differences show why the groups should not be treated as identical before the intervention.
The study reported several follow-up measures for vegetables. Among intervention children, mean dark-green-vegetable intake rose from 0.08 servings immediately after treatment to 0.23 servings at 12 months, with p = 0.05. From baseline to six months, white-potato intake changed by -1.3 servings in controls compared with 0.12 servings in intervention children, with p = 0.02.
The number of vegetables tried increased in both groups between immediate post-treatment and 12 months. Intervention children rose from a mean of 24 vegetables tried to 27, with p = 0.02. Control children rose from 23 to 26, with p = 0.009. Because both groups changed, the figures do not show that every improvement was unique to the cooking intervention.
At baseline, control children had a mean vegetable-liking rating of 7.2, while intervention children had a mean rating of 6.6 on the study’s liking scale. The study was a non-randomized cluster-allocated community trial, so its findings have limited generalizability beyond the participating families and setting.
Cooking within family meal routines
Cooking with children often happens inside a broader family-meal routine. The U.S. Census Bureau reported that 85% of parents in the 2020 Survey of Income and Program Participation shared dinner often with children ages 0–17, defining “often” as at least five times per week. The share was 84% in 2018 and 85% in 2020.
The Census Bureau trend series reported frequent shared dinners for at least 80% of children in every year from 1998 through 2020. Shared meals are not the same as children cooking the meal, but they describe the setting in which children may observe, assist with, or discuss food preparation.
The same U.S. measure found that shared dinners with the other parent, as reported by the reference parent, rose from 56% in 2018 to 63% in 2020. That statistic concerns family interaction around dinner, not the division of kitchen labor.
UNICEF’s 2018–2019 qualitative research adds a global household-responsibility perspective. Close to 50% of adolescents said mothers had primary responsibility for preparing and cooking meals. Only five adolescents reported that a maid or other paid help did the family cooking. Across most countries in the research, fathers were most likely to provide money for food purchases in about 75% of adolescents’ families.
Together, these findings separate three related but different ideas: eating together, helping prepare food, and carrying primary responsibility for cooking. The available evidence spans Alberta, four regions surveyed during the 2020 COVID-19 period, U.S. program evaluations, and UNICEF’s multi-country qualitative work. Percentages and scores retain each source’s population, scale, and measurement period, and the program results should not be generalized to every family.
Sources
- Involvement in home meal preparation is associated with food preference and self-efficacy among Canadian children (2010 Alberta survey)
- From the pandemic to the pan: the impact of COVID-19 on parental inclusion of children in cooking activities: a cross-continental survey (May–June 2020 comparisons)
- Healthy helpers: using culinary lessons to improve children’s culinary literacy and self-efficacy to cook (2023 curriculum evaluation)
- An in-home intervention of parent-implemented strategies to increase child vegetable intake (2018–2019 study period)
- Pandemic Brought Parents and Children Closer: More Family Dinners, More Reading to Young Children (2020 SIPP)
- Food and Me: How Adolescents Experience Nutrition Across the World (2018–2019 qualitative research)