Low demanding parental feeding style is associated with low consumption of whole grains among children of recent immigrants

Abstract

We explored the influence of immigrant mothers feeding style on their children’s fruit, vegetable and whole grain intake and how this relationship differed by mother’s time in the U.S. Baseline data were collected on mother-child (3–12 yrs.) dyads enrolled in Live Well (n=313), a community-based, participatory, randomized controlled lifestyle intervention (2008–2013). Socio-demographics, years of residence in the U.S., behavioral data, and responses to the Caregiver’s Feeding Styles Questionnaire (CFSQ) were obtained from the mother. Measured heights and weights were obtained for both mother and child. Child dietary intake was assessed using the Block Food Screener. Separate multiple linear regression models were run, adjusting for child and mother covariates. Interactions between feeding styles and years in the U.S. (<5 and ≥5 years), ethnicity, and child age were tested. Sixty-nine percent of mothers were overweight or obese, 46% of the children were overweight or obese. For mothers in the U.S. for <5 years, having a low demanding/high responsive style was associated with lower child intake of whole grains in adjusted models vs. a high demanding/high responsive style (p<0.05). This was not seen for mothers in the U.S. for ≥5 years. Thus, the influence of feeding style on dietary intake may change with length of time in the U.S. These hypotheses-generating findings call for future research to understand how broader socio-cultural factors influence the feeding dynamic among immigrants.

Cultural Influences on Childhood Obesity in Ethnic Minorities: A Qualitative Systematic Review

“…Pressure-to-eat practices result in overconsumption of food (Power, O’Connor, Orlet Fisher, & Hughes, 2015; Scaglioni et al, 2018). Permissive or indulgent feeding styles—sometimes called child-controlled feeding (Haszard, Skidmore, Williams, & Taylor, 2015)—are associated with decreased fruit and vegetable intake, higher intake of low-nutrient foods (Hennessy, Hughes, Goldberg, Hyatt, & Economos, 2012; Langer, Seburg, JaKa, Sherwood, & Levy, 2017) and increased BMI (Jang et al, 2017; Tovar et al, 2015). Parent indulgence, however, is not a culture-specific risk factor.…”

“…A protective influence found to be common to the cultures in this review was the theme of family, specifically family meals. Research has examined family meals in relation to childhood obesity and found that having such meals—as infrequently as one to two times a week—can protect against overweight and obesity (Berge et al, 2015; Berge et al, 2017; Tovar et al, 2015; Verhage, Gillebaart, van der Veek, & Vereijken, 2018). Information about the benefits of eating together as a family can guide nurses regardless of ethnicity.…”

Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Brazilian Portuguese Version of the Caregiver’s Feeding Styles Questionnaire

“…The CFA performed with the prototype of 19 items was constrained to two factors, "parent-centered feeding strategies" (12 items) and "child-centered feeding strategies" (seven items). The factor structure was designed with Factor 1 allocating items of the "parent-centered feeding strategies", that is, Items 1,2,5,7,10,11,12,13,14,16,18, and 19 because they presented a standardized coefficient equal to or greater than 0.30. Among these, Items 2, 16, and 18 showed error variances above 0.70 (Table 3).…”

“…These findings made it possible to reevaluate the questionnaire by proposing a one-dimensional structure that was evaluated by structural equations model. The new prototype of the questionnaire to be tested had 13 items in a single dimension, i.e., Items 1,2,5,6,7,10,11,12,13,14,16,18,and 19. On the one hand, convergent validity was achieved in dimension Factor 1 (F1), "parent-centered feeding strategies" but not in dimension F2, "child-centered feeding strategies" (Factor 1 = 0.54 and Factor 2 = 0.32). On the other hand, discriminant validity was achieved, considering that the square roots of the AVE (Factor 1 = 0.73 and Factor 2 = 0.57) were greater than the correlations between Factors 1 and 2 (−0.11) ( Table 3).…”

“…The instrument has been widely used in the United States with ethnic minority, immigrant, and low-income families [12,15,16]. However, a limited number of studies have assessed the cross-cultural adaptation of the CFSQ [17][18][19][20], especially those that address the psychometric characteristics of the instrument. The original CFSQ shows good test-retest reliability, internal consistency, predictive, and convergent validity [12,15].…”