1-204 - Reading Labels and Setting Tables: Examining Children’s Eating and Food-Related Parenting from an Ecological Perspective

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Poor nutrition and childhood obesity are major public health concerns perpetuated by ecological systems that do not support children’s healthy eating or optimal parenting. This symposium, guided by the ecological systems theory perspective, will focus on how multiple levels of influence impact children’s eating attitudes, behaviors, and health, as well as mothers’ and fathers’ food-related parenting.

Paper one begins by examining how macrosystem influences, such as exposure to deceptive labeling and marketing, influence children’s ratings of the health, taste, and willingness to try various foods. Paper two focuses on the interplay of individual and macrosystem influences by examining whether a previously effective intervention created to reduce college students’ sugar consumption is effective with 7th graders. Paper three will shift focus to microsystem influences related to parenting in the food domain. This paper will describe the intra-individual variability seen in mothers’ and fathers’ daily reports of restrictive, pressuring, indulgent, and supportive feeding practices across seven days, highlighting the chronosystem. Last, paper four will examine how macrosystem influences, like socioeconomic status and living in a food desert where healthy, fresh foods are not readily available, impact parenting in and outside the food domain.

This symposium brings together researchers utilizing diverse research methodologies and samples to study the complex, dynamic systems underlying the development of eating behaviors and weight in children. Focusing on eating attitudes, behaviors, and food-related parenting will help elucidate the complexity of the problems of poor child nutrition and obesity, while providing a way to discuss solutions.

Sub Unit

• Health, Growth, Injury

Chair

• Shayla Holub, University of Texas at Dallas

Individual Presentations

• Apples Don’t Fall Far? Parent-Child Dyad Evaluations of Packaged Fruits and Vegetables - Presenting Author: Lauren A. Dial, Bowling Green State University; Non-Presenting Author: Dara Musher-Eizenman, Bowling Green State University

• Challenges in a Preteen Sugar Reduction Intervention - Presenting Author: Michayla Stallings, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Jack Burg, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Studer, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Madison Schloemer, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Emma Monnin, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Julia Snell, The University of Findlay; Non-Presenting Author: Allison Kiefner-Burmeister, The University of Findlay

• Day-to-Day Variability in Mothers’ and Fathers’ Dinnertime Feeding Practices - Presenting Author: Shayla Holub, University of Texas at Dallas; Non-Presenting Author: Jackie A Nelson, University of Texas at Dallas; Non-Presenting Author: Deyaun Lynn Villarreal, The University of Texas at Dallas; Non-Presenting Author: Olivia Smith, University of Texas at Dallas

• Living in a Food Desert: The Relationship between Food Security and Access and Maternal Self-Efficacy - Presenting Author: Miranda L. Frank, Bowling Green State University; Non-Presenting Author: Dara Musher-Eizenman, Bowling Green State University