Children’s Consumption Patterns and Their Parent’s Perception of a Healthy Diet

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Description

This study aims to examine children’s fruit, vegetable, and added sugar consumption relative to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Heart Association’s recommendations, as well as to compare children’s reported consumption with parental perception of the child’s overall…

This study aims to examine children’s fruit, vegetable, and added sugar consumption relative to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and the American Heart Association’s recommendations, as well as to compare children’s reported consumption with parental perception of the child’s overall diet quality. Data were drawn from 2 independent, cross sectional panels (2009–10 and 2014–15) of the New Jersey Child Health Study. The analytical sample included 2229 households located in five New Jersey cities. Daily consumption of fruit (cups), vegetables (cups), and added sugars (teaspoons) for all children (3–18 years old) were based on parent reports. Multivariate linear regression analyses estimated children’s adjusted fruit, vegetable, and added sugar consumption across parents’ perception categories (Disagree; Somewhat Agree; and Strongly Agree that their child eats healthy). Although only a small proportion of children meet recommendations, the majority of parents strongly agreed that their child ate healthy. Nonetheless, significant differences, in the expected direction, were observed in vegetable and fruit consumption (but not sugar) across parental perceptional categories for most age/sex groups. Dietary interventions tailored to parents should include specific quantity and serving-size information for fruit and vegetable recommendations, based on their child’s age/sex, and highlight sources of added sugar and their sugar content.

Date Created
2020-08-03
Agent

The New Jersey Child Health Study: A Research Brief: Community Environments

Description

Many factors influence children’s health behaviors and health outcomes. The Social Ecological Model (SEM) groups these factors into interactive layers, creating a framework for understanding their influence and for designing interventions to achieve positive change. The layers of influence in…

Many factors influence children’s health behaviors and health outcomes. The Social Ecological Model (SEM) groups these factors into interactive layers, creating a framework for understanding their influence and for designing interventions to achieve positive change. The layers of influence in the SEM include individual, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy factors (see figure). The New Jersey Child Health Study (NJCHS) was designed to examine how specific layers of the SEM, particularly food and physical activity environments in schools and communities, affect obesity outcomes in children

Date Created
2019-10
Agent

How Well Do Parents Assess Their Children's Diet? Results from the New Jersey Child Health Study.

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Description
Objective: Parents play a critical role in their child's diets, yet there is lack of research in

the US comparing parental perception of their child’s diet with quantitatively assessed diet quality. We examined the association between parent perception of their child’s…

Objective: Parents play a critical role in their child's diets, yet there is lack of research in

the US comparing parental perception of their child’s diet with quantitatively assessed diet quality. We examined the association between parent perception of their child’s overall diet and the child’s diet quality, as measured by frequency of consumption of key food categories.

Methods: Secondary analysis was conducted using data from two independent cross- sectional panels of surveys with parents of a 3-18 year old child. Data collection took place in 2009-2010 and 2014, the random sample was drawn from low-income cities. Well-established survey questions assessed parental perception of their child’s diet and frequency of consumption of fruits, vegetables, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB), fast food and unhealthy snacks. Diet quality scores were calculated for each child, with higher scores reflective of healthier diets (max score= 40). Ordered logistic regressions examined associations between parental perception and consumption of food categories. Multinomial logistic regressions examined associations between levels of concordance in parent perception and diet scores by demographic sub-groups.

Results: Almost half of children were non-Hispanic black (46%) and 40% were Hispanic. Overall 52% of parents strongly agreed, 33% somewhat agreed, 10% somewhat disagreed, and 4% strongly disagreed that their child eats a healthy diet. The mean diet quality score for the sample was 20.58 ± 6.7. Children from our sample with the unhealthiest diet had a mean frequency of fruit intake = 0.8 times/day and SSBs = 2.2 times/day. Children with the healthiest diet had a mean consumption of fruit=1.7/day and

SSBs= 0.4/day. Parental perception of their child’s diet was significantly higher when their child consumed more fruit (p<0.001) and vegetables (p<0.001) and lower when their child consumed more fast food (p<0.001), SSBs (p=0.01) and unhealthy snacks (p=0.02). Over half of parents overestimated the healthfulness of their child’s diet (61%). Parent, child and household demographics did not moderate this association.

Conclusions: Although parental perceptions that their child eats healthy are associated when their child eats more healthy foods and less unhealthy foods, parents’ perceptions still do not align with their child’s diet.
Date Created
2019
Agent
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