Parent and child perspectives on family out-of-home eating: a qualitative analysis

Abstract

Objective: To (i) explore the factors influencing family out-of-home (OH) eating events and (ii) identify possible opportunities for food businesses to support families in making healthier OH choices. Design: Focus group discussions were conducted with parents (six to eight participants per group) and friendship pair discussions (informal interviews with two children who are friends) were conducted with children (5-12 years) throughout the island of Ireland. Both discussions were audio-recorded and analysed using a thematic content analysis. Setting: Eight focus groups and sixteen friendship pairs were conducted in Northern Ireland and sixteen focus groups and thirty-two friendship pairs were conducted in the Republic of Ireland. Subjects: Purposive sampling was used to recruit a sample of non-related parents and children that represented equal numbers of gender, age, socio-economic status and demographic backgrounds. Results:: The main, overarching theme was that families perceived OH eating to be a treat, while health was not currently a key priority for many parents and children. Children were reported to have most responsibility for their own food choice decisions in this environment, with taste and food neophobia having the greatest influences. Parents believed that if food businesses could meet parent and child priorities in addition to health influences, e.g. change cooking methods, and increase flexibility, then families would be more likely to patronise these establishments. Conclusions: The entire family OH eating experience needs to be considered when developing public health interventions and this research has highlighted key opportunities that caterers could employ to support healthier family OH food choices. Obesity is a complex, multifaceted public health problem in which the food environment plays a key role (1) . Out-ofhome (OH) eating is one aspect of the food environment that is becoming increasingly important in promoting overeating and excess energy intakes. The increasing trend in OH eating has been well documented in the USA (2,3) , but a lack of consistent data and definition of OH eating has hindered the identification of any clear trends for the UK and Republic of Ireland (ROI). In the UK, OH eating accounted for 11 % of total energy intakes in 2011 (4) but the definition of OH eating was not clear, with the exception of including school and work meals. In ROI, OH eating contributed 24 % to total energy intakes when restaurants, takeaways, shops and delicatessens were included (5) .In adults, OH eating has been associated with larger portion sizes (2,6,7) and higher energy intakes (2,(6)(7)(8)(9) but lower micronutrient (8) and fruit and vegetable intakes (6,9,10) . Similar findings have been found for children, suggesting that children who eat OH frequently have higher intakes of total energy, total fat, total carbohydrate, added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages with lower intakes of fibre, milk, fruit and vegetables (11,12) . Fast-food establishments and restaurants were f...

Making personalised nutrition the easy choice: Creating policies to break down the barriers and reap the benefits

“…Those screened for the Food4me Proof of Principle study in Greece, for example, also had a significantly greater mean BMI (26.7), higher incidence of sedentariness (50.2%) and were significantly more likely to report being on a therapeutic diet (9.6%) than any of the other countries (Livingstone et al, 2015). high levels of concern with data protection were observed in these same countries in the current analysis.…”

“…Between-country differences in perceived benefits of and willingness to pay for personalised dietary health promotion appear to reflect between-country differences in the health lifestyle profile of volunteers screened for the Food4me Proof of Principle study and who had opted to take up personalised nutrition (Livingstone et al, 2015). Those screened for the Food4me Proof of Principle study in Greece, for example, also had a significantly greater mean BMI (26.7), higher incidence of sedentariness (50.2%) and were significantly more likely to report being on a therapeutic diet (9.6%) than any of the other countries (Livingstone et al, 2015).…”

“…This was not surprising given that food choices are socially embedded (Robinson et al, 2013). Other qualitative investigations into factors determining healthy eating have also implied that a major perceived barrier to healthy eating is the competing requirements of other family members (Baruth et al, 2014;Cason-Wilkerson et al, 2015;McGuffin et al, 2015). Personalised nutrition interventions, therefore, may have to take into account the preferences of not only the individual, but also of other household members.…”

Impact of Socioeconomic and Social Contexts on Youth Perceptions of School Nutrition Policy Development in Lebanon

“…Other factors including peer acceptance and seeking social identity have greater influence resulting in less healthy food choices and sedentary lifestyle [8,9,11,39]. Another area of influence is advertising (TV, magazines, billboards, groceries) and it is evident as reported in this study that youth are influenced by advertising methods especially "images", such as the use of characters on packaging, the television food advertisements, the advertisements done by the popular local and international artists [8,10,36,39,40]. One young boy stated "I will do whatever Justin Bieper will tell me to do".…”

“…Although parents, especially mothers, provide the strongest influence on children's health beliefs and behaviorism, they are not the only actor to model their lifestyle [14,34,35]. Children and adolescents alike are also influenced positively or negatively by what their peers eat and if they exercise [14,35,36].…”