Treats: low socioeconomic status Australian parents’ provision of extra foods for their overweight or obese children

Pescud, Melanie; Pettigrew, Simone

doi:10.1071/he13093

Cited by 9 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Participants in our study primarily defined a treat as 'something nice', 'deserved/earned' and 'something special' -this is in contrast with two Australian studies (Pescud & Pettigrew, 2014;Petrunoff et al, 2014) showing that parents defined a treat as something infrequent, unhealthy, rare or expensive. Low-frequency or rarity was not essential to our participants' definition of a treat, possibly because of cultural differences and the wide accessibility to unhealthy foods in the modern age.…”

Section: Significance Of the Results And Implicationscontrasting

confidence: 59%

“…A list of contexts or motivations (see the second column of Table 3) for treat provision to children was generated from a prior focus group study (McCafferty et al, 2018) and literature (Bugge & Lavik, 2012;Davison et al, 2015;Moore et al, 2017;Pescud & Pettigrew, 2014;Petrunoff et al, 2014;Sabey et al, 2017). For each context, participants were first asked about whether they provided treat foods in the specified context.…”

Section: Contexts and Motivations Of Treat Foods Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the focus group findings and literature (Pescud & Pettigrew, 2014;Petrunoff et al, 2014), 15 phrases were selected to test participants' perception of the essence of treats (see the first column of Table 2). Participants were asked to select up to three phrases they felt defined a treat for the child or children.…”

Section: Definition Of Treatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, health professionals' understanding of the term 'treat' may be quite subjective; therefore it is important to investigate adults' own definition and treat giving behaviour. 'Treat', 'sometimes foods' and 'junk' are the three most common terms parents used to describe M A N U S C R I P T A C C E P T E D ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Pettigrew, 2014;Porter & Grills, 2013;Sabey, Rauer, Haselschwerdt, & Volling, 2017). Treat foods can also be routinized, for instance, dessert, after-school, Fridays, and weekends (Bugge & Lavik, 2012;Pescud & Pettigrew, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is it still a real treat? Adults' treat provision to children

et al. 2018

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Consumption of high-energy foods in the absence of hunger has been identified as a key target to address in the area of obesity. For children, such foods are often provided by adults as treats. There is limited understating of adults' treat giving. The present study aimed to understand adults' provision of treats to children on the Island of Ireland. A total of 1039 participants, including parents, grandparents, child minders and education practitioners completed a face-to-face survey in their home. Participants defined their treats for children primarily as 'something nice', 'deserved/earned' and 'something special'. The top three motivations for treat foods provision were 'to reward for good behaviour' (42.3%), 'because the child(ren) ask' (42.2%) and 'to make the child(ren) feel better' (29.4%). Almost all participants would provide treat foods at celebrations and 52.5% always did so. In addition, 68% participants had structured weekly and/or daily treat for children. Treats provided to children were dominated by energy-dense foods. The top three were sweets, chocolates and ice-creams, being used by 45.2%, 45.1% and 38.8% participants. Variations were observed across different adult groups, in terms of their treat giving behaviour. The main observation was that adults' treat foods provision has become habitual. The findings can help develop targeted strategies to encourage the reduction or replacement of food treats for children.

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Section: Significance Of the Results And Implicationscontrasting

confidence: 59%

Section: Contexts and Motivations Of Treat Foods Provisionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Definition Of Treatsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is it still a real treat? Adults' treat provision to children

et al. 2018

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“…Children who live in disadvantaged areas are more likely to be given unhealthy diets and to be overweight or obese. 8 In the areas of greatest relative disadvantage, the rate of child obesity was more than double (28%) the rate of obesity in areas with the lowest relative disadvantage (13%). 9 As well as socioeconomic differences, these children had less attractive options in education, fewer opportunities for physical activity and restricted access to healthy food options.…”

mentioning

confidence: 98%

Children, poverty and health promotion in Australia

Binns

Howat

Smith

et al. 2016

Health Prom J of Aust

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Australian children's perceptions of discretionary foods

Velardo

Drummond

2018

Appetite

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Energy-dense nutrient poor foods and drinks, often referred to as discretionary choices, can contribute a significant amount of energy, fat, sodium and sugar to the diet if consumed in large quantities. Currently many Australian children are consuming a diet that is characterised by large quantities of discretionary items. We undertook a qualitative study to gain a descriptive account of preadolescent children's attitudes and perceptions towards health and nutrition. A series of 6 focus groups and 14 individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty-eight children aged 11-12 years, across three state government schools in a socially disadvantaged region of metropolitan South Australia. The naturalistic manner of qualitative inquiry led to several unintended yet highly pertinent emergent themes, including children's perceptions and practices surrounding discretionary food consumption. Our results indicate that while Australian guidelines recommend that discretionary foods are consumed 'only sometimes and in small amounts', children generally held a different belief with respect to what constituted 'sometimes'. Many children identified that discretionary foods should be consumed in moderation to maintain a balanced diet, yet reported consuming these foods frequently. Self-reported discretionary food consumption was grounded in socially constructed experiences valued by the children, who made situational attributions to foods and legitimised discretionary food consumption in certain contexts, for example during the weekend. Overall, there is variability between children's opinions about the acceptable frequency of consumption of discretionary foods compared with national guidelines.

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Treats: low socioeconomic status Australian parents’ provision of extra foods for their overweight or obese children

Cited by 9 publications

References 36 publications

Is it still a real treat? Adults' treat provision to children

Is it still a real treat? Adults' treat provision to children

Children, poverty and health promotion in Australia

Australian children's perceptions of discretionary foods

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