Development of a Comprehensive Assessment of Food Parenting Practices: The Home Self-Administered Tool for Environmental Assessment of Activity and Diet Family Food Practices Survey

Abstract

Background Parents' food parenting practices have a significant influence on children's dietary intake and risk for obesity and chronic disease. Understanding the impact and interactions between parents' practices and children's behavior is limited by a lack of development and psychometric testing and/or limited scope of current measures. HomeSTEAD (Home Self-administered Tool for Environmental assessment of Activity and Diet) was created to address this gap. Objective This paper describes development and psychometric testing of HomeSTEAD's family food practices survey. Participants/Design Between August 2010 and May 2011, a convenience sample of 129 parents of children ages 3-12 years were recruited from central North Carolina and completed the self-administered HomeSTEAD survey on three occasions during a 12 to 18-day window. Demographics and child diet were assessed at Time 1. Child height and weight were measured during the in-home observations (following Time 1 survey). Statistical analysis Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Time 1 data was used to identify potential scales. Scales with more than three items were examined for scale reduction. Following, mean scores were calculated at each time points. Construct validity was assessed by examining Spearman rank correlations between mean scores (Time 1) and children's diet (fruits and vegetables, sugar-sweetened beverages, snacks, sweets) and BMI z-scores. Repeated measures analysis of variance was used to examine differences in mean scores between time points; and single-measure intraclass correlations (ICC) were calculated to examine test-retest reliability between time points. Results EFA identified 24 factors and retained 124 items; however, scale reduction narrowed items to 86. The final instrument captures five Coercive Control practices (16 items), seven Autonomy Support practices (24 items), and 12 Structure practices (46 items). All scales demonstrated good internal reliability (α>0.62), 18 factors demonstrated construct validity (significant association with child diet, p<0.05), and 22 demonstrated good reliability (ICC>0.61). Conclusions HomeSTEAD's family food practices survey provides a brief, yet comprehensive and psychometrically sound assessment of food parenting practices.

Parental communication and children's food choices : understanding the theoretical processes and conditions of effect

“…found that active guidance of food consumption was related to the higher consumption of healthy foods, mediated through attitude towards consuming healthy foods. Likewise, Vaughn et al (2017) found that nutrition education was related to higher consumption of fruits and vegetables, and lower consumption of sweets. Despite its potential importance, there have been little conceptual development of the construct, leading to conceptual ambiguity between active guidance, nutrition education, reasoning, and encouragement, resulting in potentially problematic operationalization (Lwin et al, 2017;Vaughn et al, 2016 This aim of this study is to explicate the concepts of active and restrictive guidance of food consumption, and to operationalize the constructs using a variety of item-generation and scale validation techniques, so that it can offer some clarity into their effects on child food consumption.…”

“…Most notably, parents are educators, role models, and gatekeepers in the lives of their children (Case & Paxson, 2002). In the context of food consumption, public health and health communication researchers have identified several food-related parenting practices which are key determinants of child food consumption (Vaughn et al, 2016;Vaughn, Dearth-Wesley, Tabak, Bryant, & Ward, 2017;Vaughn, Tabak, Bryant, & Ward, 2013a;Yee, Lwin, & Ho, 2017). In order to better understand how parents can promote healthy behaviors among children, it is important to situate the question within a meaningful theoretical framework that seeks to explain the influence of social contexts on children and vice versa.…”

“…Despite this, a broad consensus among researchers examining parental influence on child food consumption is that the influence comes from context-specific behaviors and actions parents engage in that influences a child's socialization outcomes (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). The spectrum of strategies and actions parents exhibit which socializes children in the context of food consumption has been identified by public health, health communication, and nutrition researchers as food parenting practices (Vaughn et al, 2016;Vaughn et al, 2017).…”

“…For example, parents actively guiding about nutrition have been found to be associated with greater fruits and vegetables intake and lower SSB intake (Lwin et al, 2017;Melbye & Hansen, 2015). Rule-setting, on the other hand, has been found by some researchers to lead to increased consumption of healthy foods and lower consumption of unhealthy foods (de Bruijn, Kremers, de Vries, van Mechelen, & Brug, 2007;Vaughn et al, 2017;Vereecken, Keukelier, & Maes, 2004). Other studies had conflicting findings, with some researchers finding the opposite effect taking place (Boots, Tiggemann, Corsini, & Mattiske, 2015;Monge-Rojas et al, 2010).…”

“…In the previous chapter, I defined active guidance as "the degree to which parents actively discuss, verbally interact, and instruct their child with regards to food" (Yee et al, 2017 Vaughn et al, 2017;Vereecken et al, 2004). On the other hand, restrictive guidance is defined as the "frequency with which parents set limits, rules, or restrictions regarding food consumption" (Yee et al, 2017).…”