Food and its social context (a case of the pupils in one elementary school)

Food and its social context in connection with children is studied more and more often today. It seems that family characteristics influence childrens eating habits. Those habits affect other parts of childrens social life as integrating into their peer class group as well. Therefore the goal of this paper was to find out how eating habits of 25 children from 2nd grade of a local elementary school in Litvinov are affected by their family background and how those children are successful in integrating with their classmates. Direct observation of children during their school collective eating time (snack and lunch) was the chosen method. Family eating habits were established by using Likert scale items. There was also determined family socioeconomic status for each child and every pupil was marked on the scale of popularity. Some differences in childrens eating habits were successfully connected with socioeconomic status of families. Pupils from families with higher socioeconomic status think more often that eating together during celebration is very important. Their snacks are also richer and fathers or mothers partners from those families participate in preparing food for children. In contrast there was discovered weaker concern for quality of childrens eating in families with lower socioeconomic status. Although there is a clear distinction between eating strategies of popular and unpopular children, it is not possible to make clear connection with socioeconomic status of families. The popularity among children in 2nd grade is rather connected with gender of pupils