Understanding Parental Ethnotheories and Practices About Healthy Eating: Exploring the Developmental Niche of Preschoolers

Abstract

To understand parental ethnotheories (i.e., belief systems) and practices about preschoolers' healthy eating guided by the developmental niche framework. Design: Qualitative hermeneutic phenomenology. Setting: Home. Participants: Participants were 20 parents of preschool-age children ages 3 to 5 years, recruited from a quantitative investigation. A majority of the participants were white, female, married, well educated, and working full time. Methods: Participants who completed the quantitative survey were asked to provide their contact information if they were willing to be interviewed. From the pool of participants who expressed their willingness to participate in the interviews, 20 participants were selected using a random number generator. In-person semistructured interviews were conducted until data saturation (n = 20). Thematic analysis was performed. digitalcommons.unl.edu Results: Three themes and 6 subthemes emerged: theme 1-parental ethnotheories about healthy eating included subthemes of knowledge about healthy eating, motivations to promote healthy child development through healthy eating, and sources of knowledge about healthy eating (e.g., doctors, social media, government guidelines, positive family-of-origin experiences); theme 2-parental ethnotheories that supported organization of children's physical and social settings included structured mealtime routines and food socialization influences (e.g., grandparents, siblings, and childcare programs); and theme 3-parental ethnotheories that supported children's learning about healthy eating included parent-child engagement, communication, and encouragement in food-related activities (e.g., meal preparation, visiting farmer's market, grocery shopping, gardening, cooking, baking). Conclusion: Findings advance the literature on parental practices about healthy eating. Parental ethnotheories (e.g., beliefs, motivations, knowledge, and skills) matter. Developmental niche of preschoolers (i.e., physical and social settings, childrearing practices, and parental ethnotheories) constitutes an interactive system in which ethnotheories serve as guides to parental practices. Fostering nutrition education and parent-child engagement, communication, and encouragement in food-related activities are recommended to promote children's healthy eating in daily routines.

Grandparental dietary provision, feeding practices and feeding styles when caring for preschool‐aged grandchildren: A systematic mixed methods review

“…This review includes data from 16,321 subjects reported across 20 studies. Of these, 16,064 were classified as parents with 11 studies reporting whether these were mothers ( n = 1,242) or fathers ( n = 21) 39–43,45–47,49,50 . Mean ages of parents were reported in seven studies and ranged from 30 to 35 39–41,46,47,49,52 .…”

“…Twelve studies reported the educational level of parents or grandparents. Overall, grandparents tended to have less years in education than parents whereby between 17% and 100% of parents were reported to have attended higher education 39–43,45–47,49,50,54,56 whereas between 8% and 39% of grandparents had 39–41,43,54,56 …”

Exploring Feeding Practices and Food Literacy in Parents with Young Children from Disadvantaged Areas

“…The birth of children may be the critical life event that provides an opportunity to improve parents' food literacy, particularly in light of concerns about intergenerational deskilling and/or devaluating of food skills, such as cooking [20]. Involving young children in food-related activities, such as cooking, models and contributes to their eating competence [21,22]. Little is known about how food literacy behaviors relate to parent feeding practices in Australia; however, time scarcity and responsibility divisions are likely to influence how parents operationalize practices [23].…”

Assessing the play and learning environments of children under two years in peri-urban Lima, Peru: a formative research study

“…These three systems of the developmental niche are, in turn, influenced by broader macro-level factors such as poverty, employment, and food insecurity. This theory has guided research into a number of child-related topics, including eating practices among preschoolers in the U.S. and behavioral problems among children in Nepal [36,37]. The developmental niche also provides a useful framework for examining the environmental factors shaping ECD during the first 2 years of life.…”