Childhood Nutrition In Annie Lunsford's The Two Bite Club

Superior Essays
The Two Bite Club, written by Jan Adams and Annie Lunsford, explores the concept of childhood nutrition through the story of Will and Anna trying new foods from each food group. The story develops through thirty nine pages filled with colorful illustrations of the different foods they find all throughout their house. The font used in the story book resembles that of an adult’s handwriting and the first letter of the first word on each page is emphasized in a large, purple, and bold font. This easily draws the attention of a preschooler as one is reading and flipping through the pages. The language spoken by Will and the mother is complex and detailed while Anna speaks with short and simple sentences, similar to other preschoolers. She uses similar sentences throughout the book such as “oh no...I don’t think I’ll like it” and “I like it!” (Adams and Lunsford, 2009, p. 30). Each page consists of approximately two sentences and each sentence consists of seven to nine words. The Two Bite Club is a book that is relevant to the developmental domains of preschool aged children because they are slowly learning about proper nutrition and maintaining a healthy diet. …show more content…
The elements of the book such as the illustrations, content, storyline and language contribute to a preschool aged child’s physical and cognitive development by emphasizing the importance of nutrition, fine motor skills, long-term memory, and scaffolding.
The first developmental domain in relation to The Two Bite Club is physical development focusing on the nutritional needs and fine motor skills of young children. Once children move up to preschool, their nutritional needs starts to resemble that of an adult’s diet and consists of proteins, vegetables, fruits, grains, and dairy (Papalia, Martorell, and Feldman, 2014, p. 262). Children in this age range should be consuming foods from each food group to meet their nutritional needs but in moderation so they are not at risk of obesity (Papalia, Martorell, and Feldman, 2014, p. 262). These issues are addressed in the book when the mother suggests that they incorporate foods from each food group for lunch and Will elaborates, saying “there are five food groups in MyPlate. We need to eat foods from all food groups every day to be healthy and strong” (Adams and Lunsford, 2009, p. 5). Will and the mother hold up a graphic image of the MyPlate food chart throughout the story while Anna is offered two bites of different foods she has never tried before. The food chart is slowly colored in each time they try to look for a food from a different food group. She is told by her mother and brother that if she tries two bites of each food, she will also be a member of the Two Bite Club. Although Anna is hesitant at first to try new foods, she ends up liking all the food she tries and meeting her nutritional needs by eating two small bites from each food group on the chart. By eating two bites of each food group item, she is consuming her nutrients in moderation and preventing the possibility of childhood obesity as well as achieving a healthy diet. Fine motor skills are also a physical developmental concept covered in the book that include dining etiquettes such as eating with utensils and being able to pour one’s own milk into a cup or bowl (Papalia, Martorell, and Feldman, 2014, p. 259). This is illustrated when Will grabs a box of crackers from the pantry with one hand and opens the refrigerator to grab vegetables. Anna demonstrates her fine motor skills when she holds a cup of low-fat yogurt with one hand and a spoonful of yogurt in the other, clinks cups with Will and holds a bowl with one hand and an egg in the other. The story book addresses the cognitive developmental domain of a preschooler and their long term memory and scaffolding. Long term memory refers to a child’s ability to store certain information for long periods of time in their memory such as visual images and verbal information (Papalia, Martorell, and Feldman, 2014, p. 285). The story book exhibits Anna’s long term memory when she is

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