A thematic cluster analysis of parents' online discussions about fussy eating

Abstract

Food fussiness is associated with non-responsive parent feeding practices, such as persuasive and instrumental feeding. Although most children described as 'fussy eaters' are likely exhibiting developmentally typical behaviours, up to half of the parents of children 2-5 years old express concerns. Concern for fussy eating may mediate the use of non-responsive feeding practices and so must be addressed in parent feeding interventions. Therefore, it is critical to better understand parents' concerns and how they may relate to feeding practices. This study aimed to explore how parents' feeding practices and the social cognitive factors that may drive them clustered based on parents' concern for fussy eating. Data were collected from parent discussions of fussy eating on a Reddit forum (80,366 posts). Latent Dirichlet allocation was used to identify discussions of fussy eating. Relevant posts (1542) made by users who identified as a parent of a fussy eater (n = 630) underwent qualitative coding and thematic analysis. Five clusters of parents were identified, ranging in size from 53 to 189 users. These were primarily characterised by parents' degree of concern and feeding practices: (1) High concern, nonresponsive;(2) Concerned, nonresponsive; (3) Low concern, responsive; (4) Low concern, mixed strategies; (5) Low concern, indulgent. Parents who used responsive practices tended to be less concerned for fussy eating, have greater trust in their child's ability to self-regulate hunger, have longer-term feeding goals, and exhibit greater ability for personal self-regulation. Future research should further examine how these constructs may be leveraged in parent feeding interventions.

Effectiveness of Javanese Turmeric (Curcuma Xanthorrhiza Roxb) to Improve Eating Behavior Among Anorexia Children in Bogor

“…Moreover, food fussiness has been linked to non-responsive parent feeding practices, like persuasive and instrumental feeding, which can further exacerbate picky eating behaviors (Markides et al, 2022). Maternal concern has been identified as a mediator in the relationship between child food fussiness and persuasive feeding, highlighting the role of parental attitudes in shaping children's eating behaviors (Harris et al, 2018).…”

Scoping the Priorities and Concerns of Parents: Infodemiology Study of Posts on Mumsnet and Reddit

“…Previous work using Reddit as a data source has used LDA alongside thematic analysis to investigate parental discussion of fussy eating [ 37 ]. Using similar methods (but a different subreddit r/Toddler) to those presented here, this work used LDA to cluster posts into topics and then took a single topic (fussy eating) forward for further thematic qualitative analysis.…”

“…Typically, topic modeling studies use the words most associated with a topic [35], or a human interpretation of these words [36], to provide a description, but this may not always provide the reader with a complete picture of the topic. Combining LDA and qualitative analysis of a subset of posts has been used previously to provide a more detailed interpretation of topics of parent discussions of fussy eating [37] and the concerns of foster families during the COVID-19 pandemic [15]. However, our content analysis and categorization also have limitations.…”

Fussy Eating Rescue, a mobile-web app for responsive feeding practises among parents of toddlers: protocol for a pilot randomised controlled feasibility trial

“…A systematic, evidence-based approach was used to develop the Fussy Eating Rescue mHealth intervention using the Theoretical Domains Framework [ 41 ], Behavior Change Wheel (BCW) [ 42 ], and Behavior Change Techniques Taxonomy v1 (BCTTv1) [ 43 ]. This process was informed by researchers’ formative qualitative studies among the intended users of Fussy Eating Rescue [ 44 ] and consultation of the existing literature related to fussy eating and parent feeding practices in the toddler years [ 45 ]. Per the BCW, the researchers first identified the problem in behavioural terms, i.e.…”

“…Qualitative research previously undertaken by the research team [ 44 , 55 ] and studies highlighted by a recent systematic review and synthesis of previous qualitative studies examining fussy eating [ 45 ] were consulted to compile a list of barriers and facilitators to using responsive feeding practices. Facilitators included: self-efficacy beliefs [ 44 , 45 ], focusing on long-term outcome goals for their child’s eating behaviours [ 44 ] ability to self-regulate emotions and behaviours [ 44 ], knowledge that fussy eating is common and developmentally normal [ 44 , 45 , 55 ] knowledge of how children develop food preferences [ 44 , 45 , 55 ], and knowledge of what feeding practices are effective and ineffective [ 44 , 45 , 55 ]. Barriers included: parent concern about fussy eating (e.g.…”