Design Of Better Foods And Foodscapes In Kindergarten

The CARROT PAVILION
In order to research on the possibility, if physical architecture affects the children’s eating habits and food preferences, an interdisciplinary team built a 10 x 10 meter carrot pavilion with “walls” and “ceiling” of 5000 carrots hanging in invisible threads was created, making an architecturally defined space allowing various experiences. The aim was to influence the children to interact with the surroundings, the feedstock.

The Carrot activites
In order to influence the children to create a positive and strong relationship to the carrot, there were created several activities based on sensory and playfulness, as results show, that sensory education has positive effect on children’s food preferences (Reverdy et al, 2010) and positive reinforcement retrains the brain to learn new patterns of behaviour (Koster, 2004). The activities were situated within the carrot pavilion.

The RESULTS
The results were positive, underpinning the thesis: integrating feedstock in context and activities can affect children’s eating habits and food preferences.
The results will be further used as design parameters in an interdisciplinary research project, FRIDA, involving three different disciplines focusing on design, food and children. The aim of FRIDA is to turn lunch-arrangements in Danish kindergartens from passive to active.