Ensuring Children Eat a Healthy Diet: A Theory-Driven Focus Group Study to Inform Communication Aimed at Parents (original) (raw)
Related papers
Big hearts, small hands: a focus group study exploring parental food portion behaviours
BMC public health, 2017
The development of healthy food portion sizes among families is deemed critical to childhood weight management; yet little is known about the interacting factors influencing parents' portion control behaviours. This study aimed to use two synergistic theoretical models of behaviour: the COM-B model (Capability, Opportunity, Motivation - Behaviour) and Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) to identify a broad spectrum of theoretically derived influences on parents' portion control behaviours including examination of affective and habitual influences often excluded from prevailing theories of behaviour change. Six focus groups exploring family weight management comprised of one with caseworkers (n = 4), four with parents of overweight children (n = 14) and one with parents of healthy weight children (n = 8). A thematic analysis was performed across the dataset where the TDF/COM-B were used as coding frameworks. To achieve the target behaviour, the behavioural analysis revealed t...
Appetite, 2014
Despite recommended dietary guidelines, recent population surveys have recorded low fruit and vegetable and high non-core food consumption by Australian children. Young children rely on parents or primary carers to provide their diets; therefore pre-school age is an optimal time to promote and encourage healthy child eating behaviours. Identified contributing factors to a child's eating behaviour and diet in the home environment include parenting style, parent feeding practices and attitudes, parent nutrition knowledge, and home food availability. The aim of this study was to qualitatively explore perceptions, perceived influences, facilitators and barriers when providing healthy foods for young children via focus groups with parents of children with 'healthy' versus 'unhealthy' diets. Thematic analysis identified similarities across both groups including an intention to provide healthy food for their children with most parents involving their child in some level of meal preparation and most families dining together for the evening meal. Main points of difference included parents in the 'healthy' group having more partner support in relation to child diet, a willingness to say 'no' without wavering, and considering their child's daily physical activity when deciding appropriate food options. A majority of parents in the 'unhealthy' group attempted to disguise vegetables and healthy foods for their child and reported experiencing increased levels of stress regarding their child's fussy eating.
Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, 2003
Parents represent a potentially powerful intermediary in behaviour change strategies aimed at improving the lifestyle behaviours of young children. However, to fulfil this role, parents need to have the necessary knowledge and motivation to assimilate dietary guidelines. This study aimed to assess these psychosocial constructs, and subsequent parental receptiveness to nutrition education, through investigation of the barriers and benefits perceived by parents to the provision of a healthy diet and adequate exercise for their children. A qualitative methodology was employed and 41 parents took part in seven focus groups separated by socio-economic status (SES).
Journal of Health Communication, 2019
The study of parenting practices on child food consumption has often been characterized as having great utility but lacking in theory. In contrast, the theory of planned behavior (TPB) has often been suggested to be limited in its utility. To address these gaps, interpersonal constructsthe concepts of active parental guidance (e.g., nutrition education) and restrictive parental guidance (e.g., rule-setting)were integrated as antecedents to the original TPB variables in predicting child fruits and vegetables (FV) consumption. We surveyed 210 child/adolescent participants, aged between 10 and 16 in Singapore. Results from structural equation modeling showed that the integrative TPB model displayed an acceptable fit. Parental active guidance was associated with all three proximal predictors of behavior. Our results suggest that there are promising contributions to the theory of planned behavior in predicting child food consumption behavior by considering interpersonal antecedents.
Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 2011
Objective: To examine associations between Theory of Planned Behavior variables and the family meal frequency. Methods: Fifth-through seventh-grade students (n ¼ 236) completed a self-administered questionnaire in their classrooms. The relationships between Theory of Planned Behavior variables (intention, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control) and family meal frequency were examined with Spearman correlations and multiple logistic regression analysis. Results: Positive intention, positive subjective norm of family eating together, and lower perceived difficulty of making time increased the odds of adolescents having family dinners at least 5 d/wk compared with adolescents having family dinners 2 days or fewer per week. Positive intention and lower perceived difficulty for making time increased odds of having family breakfasts at least 5 d/wk. Conclusions and Implications: To increase family meal frequency, nutrition educators are encouraged to focus on increasing intention, creating positive norms about the family meal, and reducing perceived barriers caused by time conflicts.
Paediatric nurses' attitudes towards the promotion of healthy eating
British journal of nursing (Mark Allen Publishing), 2015
This study assessed paediatric nurses' attitudes towards promoting healthy eating and their opinions regarding nurses as role models for health. In all, 67 nurses from 14 wards at an acute hospital trust completed questionnaires on weight, diet, physical activity, self-efficacy and attitudes towards nurses as role models for health. Forty-eight percent felt that they could incorporate health promotion into their patient care better, and 84% believed that nurses should present themselves as role models for health. Nurses felt that their own health behaviours influenced the quality of their care: 77% reported that patients and families would heed advice better from those who appeared to follow it themselves, and 48% reported difficulties in promoting health behaviours they did not adhere to themselves. These views were inconsistent with their own lifestyle choices, since one third of respondents did not meet physical-activity guidelines, almost half were an unhealthy weight, and t...
Mothers' Perceptions of their Control over their Children's Diets
Advances in Consumer Research, 2007
In an era of rising rates of childhood obesity it is increasingly important for parents to ensure their children consume healthy diets. Given current trends in childhood obesity, it would appear that many parents are failing to engage in effective feeding practices. As mothers remain the major influence on family eating patterns (World Health Organisation (WHO) 2000), the extent to which they consider themselves to be in control their children's diets is important as it indicates where possible solutions to childhood obesity may lie. This paper explores the factors that mothers feel diminish their control over their children's diets to provide insight into why obesity is a growing problem in countries such as Australia despite the ready availability of low-energy nutritious foods and the good intentions of parents.
International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 2011
Background: Having breakfast, eating food 'cooked from scratch' and eating together as a family have health and psychosocial benefits for young children. This study investigates how these parentally determined behaviours relate to children's dietary quality and uses a psychological model, the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), to investigate socio-cognitive predictors of these behaviours in socially disadvantaged mothers of young children in Scotland. Method: Three hundred mothers of children aged 2 years (from 372 invited to participate, 81% response rate), recruited via General Practitioners, took part in home-based semi-structured interviews in a cross-sectional survey of maternal psychological factors related to their children's dietary quality. Regression analyses examined statistical predictors of maternal intentions and feeding behaviours.
Universal Journal of Public Health, 2023
Diverse complementary foods (DCF) play a significant role in meeting the nutritional needs of infants aged 6-23 months to avoid malnutrition. However, local beliefs (e.g., socioeconomic, and religious beliefs) can determine the success of such public health intervention programs, especially in highly diverse regions. Selecting the most critical factors in the community to undergo intervention programs is also tricky. This study investigated mothers' beliefs in providing DCF to evaluate their understanding of the importance of DCF with purposive sampling. A quasi-experimental study involving forty-one mothers in a stunting-impacted area of Bogor, West Java, Indonesia, was undertaken. Data were obtained via 3-phase interviews conducted by trained enumerators until saturation condition was reached. For the first phase, the mother's beliefs were identified using questionnaires based on the Planned Behavior theory. The second phase separated the subjects based on their beliefs in giving DCF. The third phase was determining the significance of differentiating beliefs between the groups using a statistical T-test and pinpointing the most significant concerns. Based on their practical understanding, twenty-two mothers were classified as DCFs (mothers who made and served DCF containing fresh ingredients to their infants) and nineteen as non-DCFs. The seven most differentiating core beliefs were identified: the factors of economy, children's pickiness in eating, husband's support, motivation, instant food consumption, places to shop, and availability of various foods around the house. This study demonstrated that distilling critical intervention points, i.e., core beliefs in complex public health interventions, can be done by applying the Planned Behavior theory.
Journal of Health Psychology, 2015
This study examined possible intergenerational transmission of eating beliefs and intentions between 60 mothers and their adult children. Maternal restrictive feeding practices were correlated with mothers' own healthy eating attitudes and subjective norms and with their adult children's subjective norms. Mothers’ beliefs and intentions were correlated with their adult children’s. Adult children's intentions to eat healthily were predicted by their attitudes and PBC, and also by their mothers' intentions and PBC. Mothers’ own beliefs and intentions may be involved in shaping their children’s beliefs and intentions into adulthood but their child feeding practices may have less of an influence.