No abstract

Most previous studies of parental influences on children’s diets included just a single or a few types of food parenting practices, while parents actually employ multiple types of practices. Our objective was to investigate the clustering of parents regarding food parenting practices and to characterize the clusters in terms of background characteristics and children’s intake of energy-dense snack foods. A sample of Dutch parents of children aged 4–12 was recruited by a research agency to fill out an online questionnaire. A hierarchical cluster analysis (n = 888) was performed, followed by k-means clustering. ANOVAs, ANCOVAs and chi-square tests were used to investigate associations between cluster membership, parental and child background characteristics, as well as children’s intake of energy-dense snack foods. Four distinct patterns were discovered: “high covert control and rewarding”, “low covert control and non-rewarding”, “high involvement and supportive” and “low involvement and indulgent”. The “high involvement and supportive” cluster was found to be most favorable in terms of children’s intake. Several background factors characterized cluster membership. This study expands the current knowledge about parental influences on children’s diets. Interventions should focus on increasing parental involvement in food parenting.

Objective: To describe the energy-dense snack food (EDSF) and energy-dense drink (EDD) consumption of children in the Netherlands and investigate subgroup differences. The amounts consumed, eating occasions, places of consumption and consumed types are reported. Design: Twenty-four hour dietary recall data were used to describe the EDSF and EDD consumption. Subgroup differences concerning these intakes were identified with ANCOVA. Setting: Dutch National Food Consumption Survey 2007-2010. Subjects: Children (n 860) aged 7-12 years. Results: The mean number of EDSF events was 3·3 (SD 1·6) per day, yielding 1569·7 (SD 928·7) kJ. Average EDD consumption was 594·2 (SD 342·3) ml/d, yielding 737·2 (SD 495·9) kJ. Over 90 % of the children consumed more energy from non-core foods per day than recommended. Differences in EDSF and EDD consumption were found between several subgroups. Most importantly, we found higher intakes among older children and children with low educated mothers. Almost half of the EDSF events took place in the afternoon and at home. Cookies and sweets were consumed during half of the EDSF events. Almost one-third of the EDD were consumed in the afternoon. The majority of these drinks were consumed at home and most were soft drinks.Conclusions: The results demonstrate that snack food and drink consumption is highly prevalent among Dutch children. Health promotion efforts addressing these behaviours are warranted and the present study could accelerate these initiatives. Focusing on children with low educated parents and on snacking at home after school offers the greatest potential to reduce snack food and drink intakes.

BackgroundTo assess how much of a public health problem emotional and instrumental feeding practices are, we explored the use of these feeding practices in a sample of Dutch mothers regarding their child’s food intake between main meals.MethodsA cross-sectional questionnaire study was conducted among 359 mothers of primary school children aged 4–12 years. The questionnaires were completed online at home.ResultsOf the mothers, 29.5% reported using foods to reward, 18.1% to punish and 18.9% to comfort their child. Mothers most frequently offered energy-dense and nutrient-poor products such as candy in the context of emotional and instrumental feeding practices. The use of these practices was associated with a lower age of both mother and child and a higher educational level of the mother. Mothers living in neighborhoods with intermediate socioeconomic position used the practices less often than mothers from low and high socioeconomic position neighborhoods.ConclusionsOur results show that mothers in our sample mainly used unhealthy products in the context of instrumental and emotional feeding practices. Research into the association between these practices and children’s dietary intake is warranted, since the use of unhealthy products in the context of these practices may not necessarily lead to an increased consumption of these products. Findings regarding the frequency of use of these practices among specific subgroups can be used to carefully determine the target population for interventions and tailor the content of interventions to specific target group characteristics. Besides examining associations between personal and family characteristics and the use of emotional and instrumental feeding practices, attempts should be made to understand parents’ reasons for using them.

Background: Parental influence on child food intake is typically conceptualized at three levels-parenting practices, feeding style, and parenting style. General parenting style is modeled at the most distal level of influence and food parenting practices are conceptualized as the most proximal level of influence. The goal of this article is to provide insights into contents and explanatory value of instruments that have been applied to assess food parenting practices, feeding style, and parenting style.Methods: Measures of food parenting practices, feeding style, and parenting style were reviewed, compared, and contrasted with regard to contents, explanatory value, and interrelationships.Results: Measures that are used in the field often fail to cover the full scope and complexity of food parenting. Healthy parenting dimensions have generally been found to be positively associated with child food intake (i.e., healthier dietary intake and less intake of energy-dense food products and sugar-sweetened beverages), but effect sizes are low. Evidence for the operation of higher-order moderation has been found, in which the impact of proximal parental influences is moderated by more distal levels of parenting.Conclusions: Operationalizing parenting at different levels, while applying a contextual higher-order moderation approach, is advocated to have surplus value in understanding the complex process of parent-child interactions in the area of food intake. A research paradigm is presented that may guide future work regarding the conceptualization and modeling of parental influences on child dietary behavior.