Investigating the role of parent and child characteristics in healthy eating intervention outcomes

Abstract

While numerous studies have investigated the efficacy of interventions at increasing children's vegetable consumption, little research has examined the effect of individual characteristics on intervention outcomes. In previous research, interventions consisting of modelling and rewards have been shown to increase children's vegetable intake, but differences were identified in terms of how much children respond to such interventions. With this in mind, the current study investigated the role of parental feeding practices, child temperament, and child eating behaviours as predictors of intervention success. Parents (N = 90) of children aged 2-4 years were recruited from toddler groups across Leicestershire, UK. Parents completed measures of feeding practices, child eating behaviours and child temperament, before participating in one of four conditions of a home-based, parent led 14 day intervention aimed at increasing their child's consumption of a disliked vegetable. Correlations and logistic regressions were performed to investigate the role of these factors in predicting intervention success. Parental feeding practices were not significantly associated with intervention success. However, child sociability and food fussiness significantly predicted intervention success, producing a regression model which could predict intervention success in 61% of cases. These findings suggest that future interventions could benefit from being tailored according to child temperament. Furthermore, interventions for children high in food fussiness may be better targeted at reducing fussiness in addition to increasing vegetable consumption.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2016.05.038
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > School of Psychology
College of Health & Life Sciences
College of Health & Life Sciences > Chronic and Communicable Conditions
Additional Information: © 2016, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: vegetable,intervention,temperament,eating behaviours,parent,feeding practices,children,Nutrition and Dietetics,Psychology(all)
Publication ISSN: 1095-8304
Last Modified: 18 Mar 2024 08:17
Date Deposited: 21 Jun 2016 09:20
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2016-10-01
Published Online Date: 2016-06-02
Accepted Date: 2016-05-31
Submitted Date: 2015-12-15
Authors: Holley, Clare E.
Farrow, Claire (ORCID Profile 0000-0003-3745-6610)
Haycraft, Emma

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