The Significance of Parent Healthy Eating Guidance in Preschoolers' Developing Healthy Meal Schemas

• In Event: Adolescents, Family, Aging: High Density Panel in Health Communication

Abstract

Research on family factors that influence young children's eating habits and dietary outcomes highlights the importance of child feeding practices. The CFPQ (Child Feeding Practices Questionnaire, Musher-Eizenman & Holub, 2007) is a multi-factor scale of child feeding attitudes and behaviors. Only one factor, Healthy Eating Guidance, is communicative, with items like "I discuss with my child why it's important to eat healthy foods." The present study assesses the relationship between child feeding practices as reported by parents and preschoolers' healthy-meal schemas assessed by a pretend meal assembly task for which 247 children created "healthy" meals using realistic food models whose nutritional value was estimated using model portion sizes. Results showed that the only parental feeding practice that predicted “healthy” meals that were genuinely healthy was the communicative factor, healthy eating guidance. The implications of these findings for parental communication with preschoolers about food are discussed.

Author

• Kristen Harrison, U of Michigan