Abstract From early ages, children build concepts of food categories, classify foods according to various points of view (e.g., taxonomic or thematic), and reason about them (e.g., Nguyen, 2008 ; Nguyen & Murphy, 2003 ). However, theory-based reasoning regarding food develop more slowly than categorization. Even adults refer to poorly-articulated explanatory concepts such as vitalism ( Slaughter & Ting, 2010 ). In two experiments, we assessed 6-, 8-, 10-year-old children’s understanding of short- and long-term effects of foods. We asked children to chose between series of long-term (eating quite often) and short-term (eating yesterday) effects of food. The key issue was whether six-year-old participants would distinguish between different time-based food effects or not. The latter is suggested by the vitalistic view according to which there is some vital power that is taken from food and water and makes humans active. Results showed that younger children could differentiate short- and long-term causes and effects of foods, even though less clearly than older children could. Results are discussed in terms of the development of the naive theories. Former results are reinterpreted in terms of the collected data.

中文翻译：

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吃饭的时间？儿童对食物短期和长期影响的概念

摘要 从很小的时候开始，儿童就建立了食物类别的概念，根据不同的观点（例如，分类学或主题）对食物进行分类，并对其进行推理（例如，Nguyen，2008；Nguyen & Murphy，2003）。然而，关于食物的基于理论的推理比分类发展得更慢。甚至成年人也提到了诸如活力论等表达不清的解释性概念（Slaughter & Ting，2010 年）。在两个实验中，我们评估了 6 岁、8 岁、10 岁儿童对食物短期和长期影响的理解。我们让孩子们在食物的一系列长期（经常吃）和短期（昨天吃）影响之间进行选择。关键问题是六岁的参与者是否会区分不同的基于时间的食物影响。后者是由活力论提出的，根据这种观点，从食物和水中获取一些生命力并使人类活跃。结果表明，年幼的孩子可以区分食物的短期和长期原因和影响，尽管不如年长的孩子清楚。结果根据朴素理论的发展进行了讨论。根据收集的数据重新解释以前的结果。