Contribution of home availability, parental child-feeding practices and health beliefs on children’s sweets and salty snacks consumption in Europe: Feel4Diabetes-Study

Abstract

Adoption of healthy dietary and snacking habits could support optimum physical and mental development in children as they define health in adulthood. This study assessed parameters associated with children’s snacking such as food home availability, parenting practices, and parents’ health beliefs. In this cross-sectional study 12, 039 children, 49.4% boys 5-12 years old, participating in the European Feel4Diabetes-Study were included. Children’s weekly consumption of sweets and salty snacks, home availability of snacks, food parenting practices, and health beliefs were assessed via questionnaires. Logistic regression was applied to explore associations of a) home availability of snacks, b) food parenting practices (permissiveness and rewarding with snacks) and c) parent’s opinions on deterministic health beliefs with children’s consumption of sweets and salty snacks. Results showed that home availability (sweets: ORadj 4.76, 95%CI: 4.32, 5.23; salty snacks: ORadj: 6.56, 95%CI: 5.64, 7.61), allowing to consume (sweets: ORadj: 3.29, 95%CI: 2.95, 3.67; salty snacks: ORadj: 3.41, 95%CI: 2.98, 3.90) and rewarding with sweets/salty snacks (sweets: ORadj: 2.69, 95%CI: 2.23, 3.24; salty snacks: ORadj: 4.34, 95%CI: 3.57, 5.28) ‘sometimes/or less frequently’ compared to ‘always/or often’ were associated with lower weekly consumption of sweets and snacks. Parents’ disagreement compared to agreement with deterministic health beliefs and inattentive eating were associated with lower consumption of salty snacks and sweets in children. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that attempts to promote healthy snacking habits in children should aim to improve parental dietary habits, food parenting practices, health beliefs, and reducing home availability of unhealthy foods and snacks.

‘My Mom Got Influenced by Yours’: The persuasiveness of mom influencers in relation to mothers' food assessments and decisions

“…A broad range of studies appoint parents to be the main influencers of children's eating habits, as they serve both as role models, educators and gatekeepers (e.g. Birch & Fisher, 1998;Cruwys, et al, 2015;Linde et al, 2022;Papamichael et al, 2021;Pedersen, et al, 2015;Wyse, et al, 2011). Research indeed shows that 69-79% of children's food intake is provided from within the home environment (Ziauddeen et al, 2018).…”

“…While an increasing body of research has been focusing on how advertising directed to children affects their food habits (e.g. Naderer, 2021;Naderer, et al, 2019), a large study among 12.041 families across six European countries argues that healthy eating practices among children is best promoted by improving their parents' dietary habits, practices and beliefs (Papamichael et al, 2021). Furthermore, especially mothers seem to have the most determining impact on their children's eating behavior.…”

Children’s perception of food parenting practices: adaptation and validation of the comprehensive feeding practices questionnaire in Chilean adolescents

“…During adolescence, maladaptive eating behaviors ( 8 ) and disorganized eating habits can occur ( 9 ), which lead to a reduction in eating quality ( 6 , 10 , 11 ), and which are associated with weight gain ( 12 – 14 ) and obesity, which generally persists into adulthood ( 9 , 15 – 18 ). Papamichael et al ( 19 ) showed that adolescents adopt diets characterized by high levels of sugar, fats, processed meats, and salt, which have been linked to an increased risk of developing non-transmissible diseases sooner than usual ( 14 , 17 ). This is a significant public health issue in all parts of the world ( 7 , 20 ) given the associated negative consequences, which lead to a reduction in quality of life in the subsequent developmental stages ( 17 , 21 – 24 ).…”