Fruit and vegetable intake is related to frequency of family meals in preschool-age children. Educating parents about the potential benefits of frequent shared meals may lead to a higher fruit and vegetable consumption among preschoolers. Future studies should address other factors that likely contribute to eating patterns during the preschool years.

Proper nutritional intake is imperative for successful development in early childhood (Samuel et al., 2018); however, many children are not consuming well-rounded diets due to selective eating (Carruth et al., 2004). Selective, or picky, eating has been defined in a variety of ways but includes an element of low dietary variety (Dovey et al., 2008). Among children, dietary selectivity is often based on the sensory characteristics of food, such as texture, smell or temperature. Approximately 50% of children demonstrate caregiverreported selective eating behaviours by the age of two, many of whom (58%) will outgrow this behaviour pattern (Carruth et al., 2004;Mascola et al., 2010). However, young children (0-8 years) who demonstrate sensory food aversions (SFA) avoid food based on sensory characteristics (e.g., colour,

OBJECTIVE. Systematic approaches are needed to help parents with young children adopt healthy routines. This study examined the feasibility (home data collection, protocol adherence, intervention acceptance) of using a behavioral activation (BA) approach to train parents of children with sensory food aversions. METHOD. Parents of young children (18–36 mo) were trained using the novel Promoting Routines of Exploration and Play During Mealtime intervention. Measures included video-recorded meals, Fidelity Checklist, Treatment Acceptability Questionnaire, and Behavioral Pediatrics Feeding Assessment Scale. Descriptive statistics were used. RESULTS. Eleven children and their parents completed the study. Two of three feasibility benchmarks were met. Intervention acceptance was high (mean score = 43/48). On average, parents used three more intervention strategies after training than at baseline. CONCLUSION. Using a BA approach to parent training shows promise for altering daily mealtime routines. Delivering this intervention in the home is feasible and received acceptable ratings among this sample.

Introduction The purpose of this study was to examine parental use of evidence-based mealtime strategies, child mealtime behavior, and parental identification of mealtime problems over time as parents were coached to implement the Promoting Routines of Exploration and Play during Mealtime intervention as part of a pilot study. Method This repeated measures study included data collection during three phases: (a) pre-intervention; (b) intervention; (c) post-intervention. Primary outcome measures included a parental strategy use checklist (parental strategy use) and the Behavioral Pediatric Feeding Assessment (problematic child behavior and parental identification of mealtime problems). Linear mixed models were fitted to assess change over time. Results We observed significant improvements in parental strategy use ( p < .001), child mealtime behavior ( p < .001), and parental perception of mealtime problems ( p = .002) over time. Conclusions The results of these analyses signal that empowering parents to integrate evidence-based strategies into child mealtimes is a promising approach to managing child mealtime behavior. More research is needed to determine the true relationship between parental strategy use and child behavior over time.

No abstract