Family meals with young children: an online study of family mealtime characteristics, among Australian families with children aged six months to six years

Abstract

BackgroundEvidence suggests that family meals influence food intakes and behaviours, which in turn impact children’s eating habits, diets and health. Mealtimes therefore offer potential as settings for health promotion. Given diet, health behaviours and health are often socioeconomically patterned, it is important to consider whether family meals differ by socioeconomic position (SEP).MethodsThe Family Meals with Young Kids study was an online survey completed by parents in 2014. Mealtime characteristics measured included; frequency of shared meals across the day, duration and location of mealtimes, parental modelling, and parental perceived importance of the evening meal. Maternal education was used to assess SEP. The aims of this study were to describe family meal characteristics among Australian families with children aged six months to six years and to describe the socioeconomic patterning of these.ResultsParticipants (n = 992) were mostly mothers (97%) with a university degree (71%). The evening meal was the most frequently reported meal eaten together with the responding parent and child (77% ≥ five nights/week). Snacks were least commonly eaten together (39% ≥ five days/week). The frequency of having everyone present for the evening meal was inversely associated with SEP (OR 0.70, CI 0.54-0.92). Parent rated importance of family meals was generally high and positively associated with higher SEP (OR 1.32, CI 1.00-1.76). Most children consumed breakfast (73%), lunch (58%) and dinner (82%) sitting at a table or bench and this was positively associated with higher SEP for all meal types (OR 1.61-2.37, p < 0.05). Increased television (TV) viewing during meals was inversely associated with SEP (OR 0.63, CI 0.54-0.72). Less than half of children (36%) watched TV during meals more than once a day.ConclusionsAustralian families engage in many healthy mealtime behaviours. Evidence that parents share meals with children and place high value on mealtimes with children provides important opportunities for promoting healthy behaviours in families. The choice of eating location and the practice of viewing TV during mealtimes are examples of two such opportunities. Socioeconomic patterning of the location of mealtimes and TV viewing during meals may contribute to socioeconomic differences in dietary intakes and may be important targets for future health promotion.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12889-016-3960-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Screen Use During Meals Among Young Children: Exploration of Associated Variables

“…To compare, one-third of children aged 0 to 2 years [27] and 0 to 4 years [26] were found to be fed in front of TV. Moreover, 65% of infants aged 0 to 2 in the U.S. were exposed to TV during meals at some time points [26] and 64% of children aged 6 months to 6 years in Australia watched TV during one or fewer mealtimes per day [32].…”

“…Screen use during meals can be more prevalent in young children due to increased overall screen time and background TV, especially because of positive parental attitudes toward screens and shared family environments, where screens are used extensively by other family members [3,8,25,27,30,31,32,33,34]. On the other hand, behaviors of infants and toddlers can be directly influenced by their parents’ or other caretakers’ efforts to nurture and regulate them [15,17,35].…”

Clustering and correlates of screen-time and eating behaviours among young children

“…Distractions, like the TV, have been shown to increase food intake [ 41 ] and TV viewing might be a strategy employed by parents in an effort to facilitate breakfast intake during busy morning routines. Eating breakfast in front of the TV could reduce opportunities for eating as a family, which is important for an array of health behaviours [ 42 ]. Furthermore, evidence suggests that SES is inversely related to eating in front of the TV (e.g.…”

Like parent, like child? Dietary resemblance in families

“…In our study, parents reported having a family meal on average almost six days per week. Not many studies have reported family meal frequencies in this age group: in an Australian study, 77% of the children shared dinner (the most frequently shared family meal) with at least one parent on at least five evenings per week [ 45 ], whereas in a sample of 4-year-olds, 57% of the mothers reported that at least a part of the family ate the evening meal together on six or seven evenings per week [ 46 ].…”