Fussy eating in toddlers: A content analysis of parents' online support seeking

Abstract

The development of healthy eating habits in childhood is essential to reducing later risk of obesity. However, many parents manage fussy eating in toddlerhood with ineffective feeding practices that limit children's dietary variety and reinforce obesogenic eating behaviours. Understanding parents' feeding concerns and support needs may assist in the development of feeding interventions designed to support parents' uptake of responsive feeding practices. A total of 130 original posts by parents of toddlers (12-36 months) were extracted from the online website Reddit's 'r/Toddlers' community discussion forum over a 12-month period. Qualitative content analysis was used to categorise the fussy eating topics that parents were most concerned about and the types of support they were seeking from online peers. The most frequently raised fussy eating concerns were refusal to eat foods offered, inadequate intake (quantity and quality), problematic mealtime behaviours and changes in eating patterns. Parents were primarily seeking practical support (69.2%) to manage emergent fussy eating behaviours. This consisted of requests for practical feeding advice and strategies or meal ideas. Nearly half of parents sought emotional support (47.7%) to normalise their child's eating behaviour and seek reassurance from people with lived experience. Informational support about feeding was sought to a lesser extent (16.2%). Fussy eating poses a barrier to children's dietary variety and establishing healthy eating habits. These results suggest parents require greater knowledge and skills on 'how to feed' children and support to manage feeding expectations. Health professionals and child feeding interventions should focus on providing parents with practical feeding strategies to manage fussy eating.Supporting parents to adopt and maintain responsive feeding practices is vital to developing healthy eating habits during toddlerhood that will continue throughout adulthood.

Food-related parenting practices and styles in households with sibling children: A scoping review

“…Thus, differential pressure to eat may be used in an attempt to ensure that lighter weight and more food avoidant siblings consume a sufficient amount and variety of food to facilitate growth and weight gain during early childhood. Despite this, evidence indicates that the use of pressure to eat may be ineffective or counter-productive in influencing child eating behaviours (Fraser, Markides, Barrett, & Laws, 2021).…”

Psycholinguistic Properties of Informational Support Seeking Posts in Online Health Communities and Predictors of Community Responsiveness

“…The language properties present in messages used to solicit informational support were associated with the volume of feedback they received from online community members. The results of this project also offer more focused insights about the potential implications of approach behaviors in support seeking (Goldsmith, 1995). Prior research has linked approach behaviors with higher quality emotional support from providers (Rains et al, 2020).…”

“…Researchers have documented the presence (Blight et al, 2015)-or relative absence (Mikal et al, 2021)-of informational support seeking messages on social network sites. Scholars studying posts made to the online community Reddit about fussy eating among toddlers reported that almost half of all the posts they examined involved requests for practical advice and tips (Fraser et al, 2021). Other work has focused on the types of messages that elicit informational support responses.…”

“…Less research has been dedicated to understanding support seeking messages. Goldsmith (1995) made a distinction between two general classes of support seeking messages involving approach and avoidance. This distinction is grounded in broader scholarship on coping in which turning toward (i.e., approach) or away from (i.e., avoidance) represent the two most fundamental responses to threats (Roth & Cohen, 1986).…”

Social support in a parenting Facebook group during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…The lack of access to traditional means of support during the pandemic led many parents to seek parenting information and support online through social media networks, which was already becoming an increasingly common practice (Ammari et al, 2014 ; Mandell & Salzer, 2007 ), particularly during stressful periods (Haslam et al, 2017 ; Lupton, 2016 ) and among parents who live far from family and friends (Drentea & Moren‐Cross, 2005 ). Pre‐pandemic research found that parents look to social media networks to obtain social support that helps them cope with their specific stressors and matches their particular needs (Green‐Hamann & Sherblom, 2014 ), such as for parents of children who are fussy eaters (Fraser et al, 2021 ), children with undiagnosed medical needs (Deuitch et al, 2021 ), children with disabilities (Ammari & Schoenebeck, 2015a ), and parents of adolescents (Doty & Dworkin, 2014 ).…”