Correlates of fruit and vegetable intake among Norwegian schoolchildren: parental and self-reports

Abstract

Objectives: To identify correlates of 6th and 7th graders' (age 10-12 years) fruit and vegetable intake, to investigate parent -child correlations of fruit and vegetable intake, and to compare parents' and children's reports of children's accessibility, skills and preferences with respect to fruit and vegetables. Design: The results presented are based on the baseline survey of the 'Fruits and Vegetables Make the Marks Project', where 38 schools participated. Setting: Fruit and vegetable intake was measured by food frequency questions. Theoretical factors, based on Social Cognitive Theory, potentially correlated to intake were measured, including behavioural skills, accessibility, modelling, intention, preferences, self-efficacy and awareness of 5-a-day recommendations. Subjects: In total, 1950 (participation rate 85%) 6th and 7th graders and 1647 of their parents participated. Results: Overall, 34% of the variance in the pupils' reported fruit and vegetable intake was explained by the measured factors. The strongest correlates to fruit and vegetable intake were preferences and accessibility. The correlation between the children's and their parents' fruit and vegetable intake was 0.23. The parents perceived their children's accessibility to be better than what was reported by the children (P , 0.01), while the children reported their skills to be better than what was perceived by their parents (P , 0.01).

The contribution of psychosocial and home environmental factors in explaining eating behaviours in adolescents

“…To measure potential environmental correlates of eating behaviours in adolescents, a new questionnaire was developed based on the results found in previous studies (Bere and Klepp, 2004;Young et al, 2004;Hanson et al, 2005;Taylor et al, 2005;Befort et al, 2006). Environmental factors included were availability of healthy and unhealthy products, family food rules and television viewing habits.…”

“…Most previously conducted studies investigating determinants of eating behaviours in adolescents looked at household socioeconomic factors such as household income and parental education (Brug and Van Lenthe, 2005). Other environmental correlates like home availability of fruits, (Young et al, 2004;Hanson et al, 2005;Befort et al, 2006), accessibility of fruits (Bere and Klepp, 2004), parental support, parental intake (Young et al, 2004), frequency of meals together with the family (Gillman et al, 2000;Videon and Manning, 2003) and 'parental style dimensions' defined by involvement and strictness (authoritative, authoritarian, neglectful and indulgent) (Kremers et al, 2003) were extensively investigated for fruit intake (Taylor et al, 2005). Studies investigating environmental correlates of fat intake are less common.…”

Fruit and vegetable availability: a micro environmental mediating variable?

“…Self-reported F&V intake of among 3957 middle-school students and associations with availability, preferences, attitudes, meal patterns and SES Availability was strongest predictor of F&V intake. Relationships between social support, meal patterns, food security, SES and F&V intake were moderated by availability Bere and Klepp (2004) 11 Assessment of correlates of 1950 6th and 7th grade children's F&V consumption A measure that included availability items was correlated with intake Young et al (2004) 28 Self-reported F&V consumption of 366 middle-school students. Child-reported parenting style, parental control, parental modelling, availability and self-efficacy 29 Cross-sectional assessment of middle-school students' dietary intake Home F&V availability has been associated with psychosocial predictors of intake.…”

Food consumption, eating behaviour and self-esteem among singlev. married and cohabiting mothers and their 12-year-old children

“…A parent-child association for food intakes has furthermore been shown (6)(7)(8) . Children's food consumption is to some extent determined by their parent's consumption.…”