The influence of parental encouragement and caring about healthy eating on children’s diet quality and body weights

Abstract

Health promotion strategies that aim for a high level of parental interest and encouragement of their children to eat healthy foods may improve diet quality and prevent overweight among children.

Parental Encouragement of Healthy Lifestyles for Their Children and Personally Caring about Healthy Lifestyles Is Positively Associated with Children Using Vitamin D Supplements

“…Our research program had previously identified parental education as a determinant of vitamin D supplement use among children [9]. It has also revealed that both parental encouragement of children’s healthy eating and parental caring about healthy eating are independently associated with the diet quality of their children [11]. Parents who care about healthy eating may have increased availability of healthy foods in the home and model healthy behaviours, and encouragement may be important in guiding children’s choices when healthy options are available [25].…”

“…The potential confounders were selected based on prior studies [11,14], due to lack of data on true confounders. Parents reported both their gender and their child’s gender in the home survey.…”

“…Parents are in a key position to encourage healthy behaviors among their children [11,12,13,14,15,16]. Studies have identified positive associations of parental influence on their young children’s physical activity [12,13,14,15,16], healthy eating [11,15,16] and vegetable and fruit consumption [17], such that parental perceptions regarding healthy behaviours for children were also found to be associated with children’s healthy body weight [11,14,15].…”

“…Studies have identified positive associations of parental influence on their young children’s physical activity [12,13,14,15,16], healthy eating [11,15,16] and vegetable and fruit consumption [17], such that parental perceptions regarding healthy behaviours for children were also found to be associated with children’s healthy body weight [11,14,15]. Although the effectiveness of the influence of parenting on supporting their children’s lifelong healthy behaviours wanes as the child matures [12,16], both physical activity and healthy eating of toddlers, pre-schoolers, young children and adolescents are influenced by parental encouragement or behavior [16].…”

Aquisição domiciliar de refrigerantes e de biscoitos reduz o efeito de uma intervenção de promoção de frutas e hortaliças

“…Assim como acontece com outros alimentos, o consumo de frutas e hortaliças sofre a influência de múltiplos fatores, que vão muito além de decisões individuais (por exemplo, preferência, gosto) 12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21 . A competição entre produtos ultraprocessados 22 e frutas e hortaliças pela participação na alimentação da população ainda é pouco explorada como um potencial fator limitante do consumo de frutas e hortaliças.…”