Feeding of preschool children in Vietnam: a study of parents’ practices and associated factors

Abstract

Background: Understanding parents' feeding control practices and their associations with various factors is useful for prevention of childhood obesity, an emerging problem in low-and middle-income countries. The aim of this paper is to describe the control practices used by parents of preschool children in Vietnam and factors associated with these. Methods: Two cross-sectional studies were conducted in urban DodaLab (n = 1364) and rural FilaBavi (n = 1313), Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites (HDSS), Hanoi, Vietnam. For 94.9 % of the children, both parents answered the Child Feeding Questionnaire and additional questions about nutritional practices. Children's and parents' weight and height were measured. Simple Pearson correlation coefficients, multiple regression and exploratory factor analysis were used for the statistical analysis. Results: Mothers reported the use of more restriction, pressure to eat and monitoring than the fathers. The measured child's body mass index (BMI) and the mother's perception of the child's weight were negatively associated with pressure to eat and positively associated with monitoring. A positive association was found between restriction and the mother's perception of the child's weight. In the rural area, high consumption of fatty food, sweets and snacks was associated with high use of restriction and monitoring. The amount of food consumed was negatively associated with the use of pressure to eat. In the urban area, consumption of fatty food and sweets was positively correlated both with restriction and pressure to eat. Monitoring was negatively associated with consumption of fatty food and snacks and positively with the amount of food. Higher education of the mothers was associated with higher use of monitoring, restriction (in the urban area) and pressure to eat (in the rural area). Conclusions: While feeding practices in Vietnam differed between mothers and fathers and between urban and rural areas, the associations with children's BMI and socioeconomic factors were weak. This implies that parental roles as well as sociodemographic factors should be considered when designing programs for prevention of childhood overweight and obesity.

Child Overweight or Obesity Is Associated with Modifiable and Geographic Factors in Vietnam: Implications for Program Design and Targeting

“…The moderate association between maternal education and child overweight or obesity, which is consistent with other studies in Vietnam [29], reveals a possible intervention point in the Vietnam education system [30], to raise awareness of the consequences of overweight and obesity and how to prevent them. This is particularly promising, given the recent rapid increase in education in Vietnam (the proportion of mothers with at least a high school education increased from 39.3% in 2012 to 49.1% in 2015).…”

Non-Responsive Feeding Practices, Unhealthy Eating Behaviors, and Risk of Child Overweight and Obesity in Southeast Asia: A Systematic Review

“…A cross-sectional study conducted with three- to six-year old children in Vietnam [28] examined the association of non-responsive parental feeding practices (i.e., restriction, pressure to eat, and monitoring of child food intake) and child weight status (BMI) and found that the mother’s perception of the child’s weight was negatively associated with pressure to eat and positively associated with monitoring. Furthermore, a positive association was found between the mother’s perception of the child’s weight and restriction.…”

Socio-demographic Determinants and the Family Ability to Care for Children with Avoidant Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID)

“…Maternal education is linear to the ability of the mothers of health promotion behavior. The mother's education is one of the factors that determine the success of the parenting patterns present when feeding their children (Do et al, 2015;Goulding et al, 2014). In contrast, low maternal education results in poor health promotion behavior (Mulyani, 2016).…”

“…The education level of the mother determines the nutritional status of the child (Habibi, Zahra, Aguenaou, & Doukkali, 2018). The good education of the mother will have an impact on the pattern of giving good food to the child (Do, Eriksson, Tran, Petzold, & Ascher, 2015). Paying attention to social and demographic characteristics is an important factor for improving the child's nutritional status (Holbrook, White, Heyman, & Wojcicki, 2013).…”