{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,23]],"date-time":"2026-10-23T21:09:20Z","timestamp":1792789760963,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"19","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1790553600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Universidad Tecnol\u00f3gica del Per\u00fa, Campus Arequipa","award":["P-2026-SUR-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P-2026-SUR-01"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0406pmf58","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"award":["P-2026-SUR-01"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["P-2026-SUR-01"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0406pmf58","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Nutrients"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Background\/Objectives: Understanding whether children\u2019s perceptions of food, that is, what a child recognizes as healthy, are associated with their actual consumption is key to designing effective nutritional interventions, but this has rarely been directly tested in the children themselves. This study aimed to determine whether children\u2019s food perceptions are associated with their actual recent intake. Methods: As secondary objectives, the cultural salience of foods perceived as healthy and unhealthy was characterized in 129 schoolchildren (52 girls, 77 boys; ages 8\u201312) at a school in Moquegua, southern Peru, using an open-ended listing task (five healthy foods and five unhealthy foods) and Smith\u2019s salience index, and this perception was compared with their reported intake from a 24-h recall (breakfast and lunch; n = 128), classified according to NOVA criteria and the Peruvian Dietary Guidelines. Results: Apples (S = 0.334) and soda (S = 0.312) were the foods with the highest salience in the healthy and unhealthy domains, respectively. Notably, 85.2% of the children reported at least one healthy food in their actual intake, and 38.3% reported at least one unhealthy food. No association was found between food perception and actual consumption (U = 1072.0, p = 0.633); this result was unaffected by the order in which the instruments were administered (\u03c72 = 0.000, p = 1.000) and showed no significant differences by sex (p &gt; 0.05 in all comparisons). Conclusions: These findings did not provide evidence of an association between children\u2019s nutritional knowledge and their actual eating habits in this sample and suggest that nutrition education programs targeting schoolchildren in the Peruvian Southern Andes should not assume, based solely on these findings, that teaching children to recognize healthy foods is necessarily sufficient to change their actual diet.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/nu18193204","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]],"date-time":"2026-09-28T11:35:59Z","timestamp":1790595359000},"page":"3204","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Knowing Is Not Eating: Child-Reported Food Perception Versus Actual Dietary Intake in Southern Peru"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-0102-9343","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Karina","family":"Eduardo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Facultad de Negocios, Universidad Tecnol\u00f3gica del Per\u00fa, Av. Tacna y Arica 160, Arequipa 04001, Peru"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"investigation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"project-administration","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Erick","family":"Salda\u00f1a","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Sensory Analysis and Consumers Study Group, Escuela Profesional de Ingenier\u00eda Agroindustrial, Universidad Nacional de Moquegua, Prolongaci\u00f3n Calle Ancash s\/n, Moquegua 18001, Peru"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"data-curation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Leon","family":"Cutipa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Facultad de Negocios, Universidad Tecnol\u00f3gica del Per\u00fa, Av. Tacna y Arica 160, Arequipa 04001, Peru"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,28]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"68","DOI":"10.1186\/s12937-022-00823-8","article-title":"Agreement between 24-hour urine and 24-hour food recall in measuring salt intake in primary school children in Australia","volume":"21","author":"Santos","year":"2022","journal-title":"Nutr. J."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"41","DOI":"10.1146\/annurev.nutr.19.1.41","article-title":"Development of food preferences","volume":"19","author":"Birch","year":"1999","journal-title":"Annu Rev. Nutr."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Scaglioni, S., De Cosmi, V., Ciappolino, V., Parazzini, F., Brambilla, P., and Agostoni, C. (2018). 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