A comparison of cafeteria and family style services in a nursery school as related to ten foods

The purpose of this investigation was to study and compare the influences of cafeteria and family style methods of service upon the acceptance of ten foods at the noon meal by pre-school children as measured by the consumption of those foods. Each experimental period lasted for eight and one-half weeks.

Subjects were 12 children, six girls and six boys, who were enrolled in the University Nursery School at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia during the 1964-65 academic year.

With the exception of ten foods, five each experimental period, menus used with both methods of service were the same. Daily records were kept of the sizes of servings and number of second servings of the specific foods chosen by each child. Records of the child's comments and of the teacher's observations of each child in relation to those foods were also kept.

Results of the data collected revealed that the subjects in general took and consumed more food with the cafeteria style than they did with the family style method of service. The number of second servings was greater with foods served by cafeteria style.