Children’s Consumption Patterns and Their Parent’s Perception of a Healthy Diet

Abstract

This study aims to examine children’s fruit, vegetable, and added sugar consumption relative to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Heart Association’s recommendations, as well as to compare children’s reported consumption with parental perception of the child’s overall diet quality. Data were drawn from 2 independent, cross sectional panels (2009–10 and 2014–15) of the New Jersey Child Health Study. The analytical sample included 2229 households located in five New Jersey cities. Daily consumption of fruit (cups), vegetables (cups), and added sugars (teaspoons) for all children (3–18 years old) were based on parent reports. Multivariate linear regression analyses estimated children’s adjusted fruit, vegetable, and added sugar consumption across parents’ perception categories (Disagree; Somewhat Agree; and Strongly Agree that their child eats healthy). Although only a small proportion of children meet recommendations, the majority of parents strongly agreed that their child ate healthy. Nonetheless, significant differences, in the expected direction, were observed in vegetable and fruit consumption (but not sugar) across parental perceptional categories for most age/sex groups. Dietary interventions tailored to parents should include specific quantity and serving-size information for fruit and vegetable recommendations, based on their child’s age/sex, and highlight sources of added sugar and their sugar content.

Factors Associated with Students’ Daily Fruit and Vegetable Recommendation at Umm Al-Qura University

“…Factors like quick lifestyle, a lack of proper health habits beginning at a young age, and reduced awareness are significant challenges the analysis found concerning reaching daily recommendations regarding fruit and vegetable intake. Eliason in 2020 noted that one source of reduced awareness concerning the study's recommendations is the parental perceptions of healthfulness that influence children's eating habits [11]. For instance, 45.92% of the study recorded a lack of constituency in fruit and vegetable daily recommendations through adopted practices, in most cases, from parents or guardians.…”

“…The analysis also recorded a mismatch of healthfulness between parents and children. Eliason highlight that 44% -65% of parent held the perception that their children consume daily recommendations despite the percentage presenting a mismatch through analysis of the children [11]. The mismatch originates from children's adaptation of dietary behaviors that disengage from healthier perceptions.…”

Family Social Support and Weight-Related Behaviors of School-Age Children: An Exploratory Analysis

“…National data as well as numerous other studies have consistently shown that children are not meeting fruit and vegetable recommendations [ 39 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ]. In contrast, most children in this study fell within the age and gender recommendations for fruit and vegetable intake, with 84% of the sample meeting at least the minimum MyPlate recommendations.…”

“…It may be that the public health messages promoting fruit and vegetable intake have penetrated this audience, leading to healthier intakes. Alternately, parents may have over-reported children’s fruit and vegetable consumption due to inaccurate estimations of intakes or, as seen in other studies, parents may have overestimated the healthfulness of their children’s diets, despite children not meeting recommendations [ 50 , 52 ]. Another possible explanation is that this study’s instrument aggregated fruits and vegetables—separating them may have revealed a differential effect for fruit vs. vegetables, which warrants further investigation.…”

Impact and process evaluation of a primary-school Food Education and Sustainability Training (FEAST) program in 10-12-year-old children in Australia: pragmatic cluster non-randomized controlled trial

“…Globally, children are not meeting the recommended daily intake of five serves of fruits and vegetables (F&V) combined [1][2][3][4]. In Australia, the most recent National Health Survey reported that 91.5% of children are not meeting their recommended intakes of two serves of fruit and five serves of vegetables/day [5].…”