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Title: Strategies low-income parents use to overcome their children's food refusal

Author
item GOODELL, LORA - North Carolina State University
item JOHNSON, SUSAN - University Of Colorado
item ANTONO, AMANDA - North Carolina State University
item POWER, THOMAS - Washington State University
item HUGHES, SHERYL - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)

Submitted to: Maternal and Child Health Journal
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 7/1/2016
Publication Date: 1/1/2017
Citation: Goodell, L.S., Johnson, S.L., Antono, A.C., Power, T.G., Hughes, S.O. 2017. Strategies low-income parents use to overcome their children's food refusal. Maternal and Child Health Journal. 21(1):68-76.

Interpretive Summary: Toddlers and preschool aged children typically refuse to try new foods. This limits the variety and adequacy of their diet. Parents use various strategies to help their children try novel foods. In addition, there are differences in the strategies parents of varying income and ethnic backgrounds use. Since parents play a key role in the development of eating habits in preschool children, the goal of this study was to determine parent feeding strategies used to influence child acceptance of previously rejected foods. We held eighteen focus groups with low income African American and Hispanic parents of preschool children in the states of Texas, Colorado, and Washington. We found that parents most often do not serve previously rejected foods, they value their child eating over liking a food and they rarely use the same feeding strategy more than once for a previously rejected food. Desiring to reduce waste and save time, parents said they most often intentionally decided not to purchase or serve previously rejected foods to their children. By identifying current feeding strategies used by parents with previously rejected foods, as well as other challenges parents face while feeding their children, we can create culturally-appropriate interventions to reinforce currently practiced desirable behaviors and modify less desirable ones.

Technical Abstract: Parents play a key role in the development of eating habits in preschool children, as they are the food "gatekeepers". Repeated exposure to new foods can improve child food preferences and consumption. The objective of this study was to determine parent feeding strategies used to influence child acceptance of previously rejected foods (PRF). We conducted eighteen focus groups (total participants = 111) with low-income African American and Hispanic parents of preschool children (3 to 5 year olds) in Texas, Colorado, and Washington. Through thematic analysis, we coded transcripts and analyzed coded quotes to develop dominant emergent themes related to strategies used to overcome children's food refusal. We found three major themes in the data: parents most often do not serve PRF; parents value their child eating over liking a food; and parents rarely use the same feeding strategy more than once for a PRF. Desiring to reduce waste and save time, parents said they most often intentionally decided not to purchase or serve PRF to their children. Because parents' primary goal in child feeding is getting children to eat (over acceptance of a variety of foods), strategies to help parents promote consumption of less easily accepted foods could help parents with child feeding struggles and improve children's dietary quality.