Influences on the quality of young children's diets: the importance of maternal food choices

Abstract

It is recognised that eating habits established in early childhood may track into adult life. Developing effective interventions to promote healthier patterns of eating throughout the life course requires a greater understanding of the diets of young children and the factors that influence early dietary patterns. In a longitudinal UK cohort study, we assessed the diets of 1640 children at age 3 years using an interviewer-administered FFQ and examined the influence of maternal and family factors on the quality of the children's diets. To describe dietary quality, we used a principal components analysis-defined pattern of foods that is consistent with healthy eating recommendations. This was termed a 'prudent' diet pattern and was characterised by high intakes of fruit, vegetables and wholemeal bread, but by low intakes of white bread, confectionery, chips and roast potatoes. The key influence on the quality of the children's diets was the quality of their mother's diets; alone it accounted for almost a third of the variance in child's dietary quality. Mothers who had better-quality diets, which complied with dietary recommendations, were more likely to have children with comparable diets. This relationship remained strong even after adjustment for all other factors considered, including maternal educational attainment, BMI and smoking, and the child's birth order and the time spent watching television. Our data provide strong evidence of shared family patterns of diet and suggest that interventions to improve the quality of young women's diets could be effective in improving the quality of their children's diets.

Finnish Children Healthy Eating Index (FCHEI) and its associations with family and child characteristics in pre-school children

“…For these reasons it was not possible to assess all aspects of content and construct validity (22,40) for the FCHEI. Some aspects of construct validity were determined however: the FCHEI did not correlate positively with energy intake and the FCHEI scores varied significantly between some sociodemographic groups (smoking/non-smoking, parental education level) known from earlier studies to have differences in diet quality (6,7,20) . The score of food group 'foods containing high amounts of sugar' correlated positively with the scores of other food groups.…”

“…Poor lifestyle habits are usually clustered in the same socio-economic groups (3) . Maternal current smoking status (7) and smoking during pregnancy (42) have both been associated with less healthy eating habits in the child but no associations have been seen at the nutrient level (14) . The FCHEI score used in the present study was not associated with the child's sex, number of siblings, maternal age or maternal BMI.…”

“…Several chronic disease risk factors such as short duration of breast-feeding, unhealthy diet, inactivity and obesity are clustered in the lower socio-economic groups (3) . In industrialized countries, children of older, well-educated and non-smoking mothers come closest to following the recommended food habits (4)(5)(6)(7) . In addition to creating the physical and social environment for their children's early experiences with food and eating, parents also influence children's eating directly through their own eating behaviours, taste preferences and food choices (8,9) .…”

Relationship of socio-economic factors and parental eating habits with children's food intake in a population-based study in a metropolitan area of Brazil

“…Therefore, studies have analysed the effect of social inequality on infant feeding in terms of family characteristics such as low income (4) , family food insecurity (5)(6)(7)(8) and low levels of parental education (9)(10)(11) . Family eating habits also influence children's food intake, as indicated in studies conducted primarily in developed countries (12)(13)(14) . However, the children's age when parental influence on children's food intake is most important has not been well established (15,16) .…”

Influences on the diet quality of pre-school children: importance of maternal psychological characteristics

“…fruit, vegetables and whole-grains), and conversely a poorquality diet is typically characterised by high intakes of highly processed foods and foods high in fat, salt or sugar (e.g. potato chips, white bread and soft drinks) (1) . To intervene to influence the quality of young children's diets requires an understanding of the determinants of food choice at this age.…”