Parents’ Qualitative Perspectives on Child Asking for Fruit and Vegetables

Abstract

Children can influence the foods available at home, but some ways of approaching a parent may be better than others; and the best way may vary by type of parent. This study explored how parents with different parenting styles would best receive their 10 to 14 years old child asking for fruits and vegetables (FV). An online parenting style questionnaire was completed and follow-up qualitative telephone interviews assessed home food rules, child influence on home food availability, parents’ preferences for being asked for food, and common barriers and reactions to their child’s FV requests. Parents (n = 73) with a 10 to 14 years old child were grouped into authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved parenting style categories based on responses to questionnaires, and interviewed. Almost no differences in responses were detected by parenting style or ethnicity. Parents reported their children had a voice in what foods were purchased and available at home and were receptive to their child’s asking for FV. The most important child asking characteristic was politeness, especially among authoritarian parents. Other important factors were asking in person, helping in the grocery store, writing requests on the grocery shopping list, and showing information they saw in the media. The barrier raising the most concern was FV cost, but FV quality and safety outside the home environment were also considerations.

Mothers’ Vegetable Consumption Behaviors and Preferences as Factors Limiting the Possibility of Increasing Vegetable Consumption in Children in a National Sample of Polish and Romanian Respondents

“…In general, when a child asks the parent for a specific vegetable or fruit, they tend to comply with this request [52]. But for children aged 2–5 years, it was observed that food product choices based on their desire may decrease their preference for healthy food products, including vegetables, as they would rather ask about products other than vegetables [53].…”

Factors influencing grocery shopping choices and the prevalence of food label use among Saudi mothers: a cross-sectional pilot study

“…This is consistent with the finding of Joanna et al (2016) who found that children’s preferences have a strong impact on mothers’ choices in the supermarket. Children’s preferences have been associated with mothers’ feeding style (Lively et al , 2017) and parenting style (Beltran et al , 2017), these styles of feeding and parenting may warrant further investigation.…”

Factores determinantes del comportamiento alimentario y su impacto sobre la ingesta y la obesidad en niños

“…Los estilos parentales generales, estilos alimentarios y prácticas de alimentación tienen una importancia fundamental sobre la dieta y el comportamiento alimentario de los hijos (Norman et al, 2018;Beltran et al, 2017). Los estilos parentales son comportamientos, creencias y actitudes que los padres aplican en su crianza de los hijos, habiéndose descrito cuatro estilos principales: autoritativo, autoritario, permisivo y negligente (Sokol et al, 2017).…”