Context matters! The relationship between mother-reported family nutrition climate, general parenting, food parenting practices and children’s BMI

Abstract

BackgroundEfforts to explain children’s nutrition behavior or weight often involve investigating the parent-child relationship, typically studying the associations between food parenting practices (FPPs) and child outcomes. However, these behaviors are embedded in a broader system: general parenting (GP, the general emotional climate at home), and the family health climate (an aspect of the broader family system in the context of health). In the current study, we combined the parent-child measures of parenting (FPPs and GP) and the nutritional dimension of the family health climate (family nutrition climate, FNC) to get a broader view of how these concepts are interrelated. The current study had two aims: predicting FPPs using GP and FNC as predictor variables, and investigating the relationship between FPPs and children’s weight in different groups of parents, based on low and high GP and FNC scores.MethodsWe collected cross-sectional data via an online survey panel. Mothers of 267 children aged 5–12 years filled out a questionnaire assessing demographics (e.g., children’s weight and height), GP, FPPs, and FNC. Bivariate correlation coefficients were calculated between all constructs. Structural equation modeling was performed to test the hypothesized relationships between GP, FNC and FPPs. Hereafter, different groups of parents were identified, using median split, based on a low or high score on GP or a low or high score on FNC. Bivariate correlation coefficients were calculated between FPPs and children’s BMI z-score for these different groups.ResultsGP and FNC were consistently positively correlated (all r’s ≥.177), and both concepts were positively associated with healthy FPPs (all r’s ≥.214). In families with a positive context (i.e. scoring high on GP and on FNC), healthy FPPs were associated with lower BMI z-scores of the children (r -.229). This association was not found for children with a more negative family context.ConclusionsFNC and GP are valuable additional concepts to investigate relationships between FPPs and child outcomes. We recommend that more studies, next to investigating the parent-child system, include a measure of the broader family system, in order to get a broader view of the mechanisms explaining child health behaviors and weight status.

The association of parenting practices with toddlers’ dietary intake and BMI, and the moderating role of general parenting and child temperament

“…Restriction was found to be associated with a favourable intake by older children and adolescents, if parents showed a general parenting style characterised by a combination of high nurturance and control (20)(21)(22) , or high nurturance only (23) . Healthy parenting practices had stronger positive effects when used within a positive general parenting context (24,25) . Availability had the strongest effect when parents scored high on control but lower on nurturance (22) .…”

The Comprehensive Snack Parenting Questionnaire (CSPQ): Development and Test-Retest Reliability

“…Asking too many questions might prevent respondents from completing the questionnaire or lead to drop-out in longitudinal studies with follow-up measures, which is especially problematic in the case of selective drop-out. An example of the application of the CSPQ in the study of contextual factors in the parenting-food intake relationship is also available [ 42 ]. In that study, the CSPQ was applied to get a broader view of the relation between FPPs and other concepts, including general parenting.…”

“…Exploratory factor analyses resulted in four factors: healthy FPPs (6 items, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85), covert FPPs (4 items, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.67), overt FPPs (2 items, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.70), and non-nutritive FPPs (2 items, Cronbach’s alpha = 0.54). The authors reported that “FPPs and child BMI-z scores were in the expected direction (i.e., healthy FPP were negatively related to BMI z-scores and non-nutritive FPPs were positively related to BMI z-score)” [ 42 ] (p. 8).…”

Keigaaf

“…The FNC scale is a validated questionnaire [152], which was translated into Dutch [176]. It can be completed by one family member or by multiple family members, after which an aggregated FNC score can be calculated [152,177].…”

“…However, in reality, parents and children are part of a family in which family members influence each other's behaviors, indicating a reciprocal influence [175]. Focusing only on individual parenting practices and general parenting, and not considering this family-level influence can lead to important information being missed when studying the parents' influence on children's nutrition behavior [13,176].…”