Vegetable parenting practices vary by feeding styles among middle class mothers of young children

Authors: WOOD, ALEXIS - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); SENN, MCKENZIE - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); BELTRAN, ALICIA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); DEMET, ROSEMARY - University Of Texas Health Science Center; HUGHES, SHERYL - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); Thompson, Deborah - Debbe; O'CONNOR, TERESIA - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC); BARANOWSKI, TOM - Children'S Nutrition Research Center (CNRC)

Submitted to: Appetite
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/4/2021
Publication Date: 12/10/2021
Publication URL: https://handle.nal.usda.gov/10113/7596011
Citation: Wood, A.C., Senn, M.K., Beltran, A., Demet, R., Hughes, S.O., Thompson, D.J., O'Connor, T.M., Baranowski, T. 2021. Vegetable parenting practices vary by feeding styles among middle class mothers of young children. Appetite. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105850.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2021.105850

Interpretive Summary: The USDA publishes the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which are updated every five years. The DGA specify the optimal intake of a number of foods for best health across the lifespan and adherence to the DGA is measured by the Healthy Eating Index (HEI). The HEI gives individuals scores for how closely they meet recommended guidelines across each component of the DGA. In preschoolers, the lowest scores have been found to be for greens and beans, and vegetables. Therefore, these may be important foods to target for improving intake in this age group. In this respect, parents may have a strong influence over preschoolers' dietary choices via their feeding behaviors. Feeding behaviors can be characterized according to the overall approach a parent takes to family mealtimes. Using this approach, behaviors are classified into discrete feeding styles, approach to the extent the parent balances expectation setting (demandingness) with responsivity to the child (responsiveness). Typically, using these two dimensions, feeding behaviors are categorized into four styles: authoritative (high demandingness/high responsiveness), authoritarian (high demandingness/low responsiveness), indulgent (low demandingness/high responsiveness), or uninvolved (low demandingness/low responsiveness). The ideal approach is thought to be represented by the authoritative style which sets high expectations of the child, but is responsive to their needs (particularly their energy balance needs, and therefore gives the child some autonomy over responding to their individual feeling of hunger and satiety). An alternative approach to assessing parent feeding behaviors is to look not at the underlying approach, but at the specific behaviors parents use to achieve their goals for their children's intake. In this approach, the behaviors are often called practices and can be food- specific, especially if parents have different goals for different foods. These practices can be categorized by whether they reflect parental attempts to impose structure, be responsive, or exert control to achieve the parent's goal for their children's intake. As yet, no research has examined the extent to which parents overall feeding style is reflected in the specific practices they use to achieve goals related to child vegetable intake (vegetable parenting practices; VPPs). To address this, we classified the feeding style of parents of preschoolers and asked parents to report on their frequency of use of 31 vegetable parenting practices (VPPs), which we classified into the domain of structure, control or responsiveness, and further subcategorized within these domains as effective (likely to obtain the intake goal without increasing child obesity risk) or ineffective (unlikely to obtain the intake goal or likely to increase obesity risk). As expected, we found that parents with an authoritative feeding style reported using more effective structure and responsiveness VPPs. Surprisingly, parents with an authoritarian feeding style did not have VPPs which differed from those with an authoritative feeding style, and parents with an indulgent feeding style had surprisingly high effective control VPPs. Further research into the similarities and differences between parents' overall approach to feeding and their use of feeding practices related to specific foods is warranted, which may help inform the design of more effective interventions aimed at improving child dietary quality.

Technical Abstract: The optimal approach to feeding preschool children balances expectation setting (demandingness) with responsivity to the child (responsiveness), and ideal feeding practices use environmental structuring and covert, non-directive control strategies while maintaining responsiveness. However, research has not examined the extent to which demandingness and responsiveness in feeding style is concordant with structure, responsiveness and control (directive and non-directive) in feeding practices. We classified the feeding style of 122 parents of preschoolers as authoritative (high demandingness/high responsiveness), authoritarian (high demandingness/low responsiveness), indulgent (low demandingness/high responsiveness), or uninvolved (low demandingness/low responsiveness). Parents reported on their frequency of use of 31 vegetable parenting practices (VPPs), that were classified into the domains of structure, control and responsiveness, and subcategorized as effective (likely to obtain the desired change without increasing child obesity risk) or ineffective (unlikely or increases risk) by expert consensus. We hypothesized that parents with an authoritative feeding style would have the highest effective structure, responsiveness and control VPPs, and the authoritarian style would differ with less responsiveness VPPs. We also hypothesized that the indulgent feeding style would have low levels of structure and control VPPs and high ineffective responsiveness VPPs. As expected, we found that parents with an authoritative feeding style reported using more effective structure and responsiveness VPPs. Surprisingly, parents with an authoritarian feeding style did not have VPPs which differed from those with an authoritative feeding style, and parents with an indulgent feeding style had surprisingly high effective control VPPs. Further research into the similarities and differences between parents’ overall approach to feeding and their use of feeding practices related to specific foods is warranted, which may help inform the design of more effective interventions aimed at improving child dietary quality.