Promotion and Prevention Focused Feeding Strategies: Exploring the Effects on Healthy and Unhealthy Child Eating

Abstract

There is a general lack of research addressing the motivations behind parental use of various feeding practices. Therefore, the present work aims to extend the current literature on parent-child feeding interactions by integrating the traditional developmental psychological perspective on feeding practices with elements of Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) derived from the field of motivational psychology. In this paper, we seek to explain associations between parental feeding practices and child (un)healthy eating behaviors by categorizing parental feeding practices into promotion and prevention focused strategies, thus exploring parent-child feeding interactions within the framework of RFT. Our analyses partly supported the idea that (1) child healthy eating is positively associated with feeding practices characterized as promotion focused, and (2) child unhealthy eating is negatively associated with feeding practices characterized as prevention focused. However, a general observation following from our results suggests that parents' major driving forces behind reducing children's consumption of unhealthy food items and increasing their consumption of healthy food items are strategies that motivate rather than restrict. In particular, parents' provision of a healthy home food environment seems to be essential for child eating.

Parental communication and children's food choices : understanding the theoretical processes and conditions of effect

“…These findings corroborate existing research that have found active parental guidance to be associated with fruits and vegetables consumption (Lwin et al, 2017;Melbye & Hansen, 2015;Vereecken et al, 2004).…”

“…For example, parents actively guiding about nutrition have been found to be associated with greater fruits and vegetables intake and lower SSB intake (Lwin et al, 2017;Melbye & Hansen, 2015). Rule-setting, on the other hand, has been found by some researchers to lead to increased consumption of healthy foods and lower consumption of unhealthy foods (de Bruijn, Kremers, de Vries, van Mechelen, & Brug, 2007;Vaughn et al, 2017;Vereecken, Keukelier, & Maes, 2004).…”

“…One possible explanation for the mixed results from studies is that the conceptualization and operationalization of these two broad forms of parenting practices are at times inconsistent and vague. For example, in one study, a promotion-centric parenting practice might be teaching about nutrition (Melbye & Hansen, 2015), while in another study, it can refer to teachable moments such as asking a child to "try at least a couple of bites but don't have to eat it all" (Papaioannou et al, 2013). As such, one of the goals of this dissertation is to clarify, explicate, and operationalize these parenting practices from a communication perspective.…”

“…Only five studies examined the influence of active guidance on child food consumption. In these studies, the measures indicating active guidance were encouragement through rationale (e.g., eating vegetables is good for you) (Vereecken et al, 2004), or nutritional teaching regarding types of food (Melbye & Hansen, 2015). Amongst the studies, one found a positive relationship between active guidance and vegetables consumption, as well as a negative relationship between active guidance and SSB consumption.…”

Maternal Feeding Strategy used by Working Mothers of Children 4-6 Years Old

“…Melbye & Hansen [10] classifies effective parental feeding behavior and ineffective strategies. Effective strategies include teaching about nutrition, encourage balance, and variety, healthy home food environment, restriction for health, restriction for weight control, monitoring.…”