Food Parenting Practices in Latinx Families

• In Event: Parenting Across Continents: Linkages, Pathways and Trajectories

Abstract

Introduction: Parent food-related behaviors can be controlling (pressure to eat, restriction) or non-directive (reasoning, encouragement) (Vaughn et al., 2016). Consistent associations are found between controlling practices (food restriction, coercion, and bribing) and lower quality child dietary behaviors. Parent food-related behaviors may be sensitive to circumstance, such as stress (Berge et al., 2017). Children’s difficult behavior may add to parental stress during mealtimes and motivate the use of controlling behaviors; however the context motivating food-related behaviors is not well understood. This may be especially true for Latinx parents who tend to use more controlling behaviors that align with Latinx cultural parenting norms of familismo (maintain strong family ties) and respeto (respect for elders). When done with warmth, controlling parenting is associated with positive child outcomes in Latinx families. Understanding how these underlying factors motivate food-related parenting behaviors may help to understand environmental factors underlying SES and ethnic disparities in childhood obesity rates.

Methods: The current study explores ethnic differences in the use of controlling food-related parenting behaviors in response to children’s difficult behaviors during videotaped mealtimes. We hypothesize that Spanish-speaking parents will use more controlling food-related behaviors in response to children’s difficult behavior as compared to English speaking parents of other ethnicities, and that using warmth when delivering controlling responses to difficult mealtime behavior will be associated with healthier child diets. Caregivers (N = 160, 92% mothers, 62% Spanish speaking) and their preschool-aged children (mean age = 3.45 years) recruited from Head Start preschools and WIC centers had a videotaped mealtime at home. Caregivers completed demographics and the Healthy Kids 19-item dietary quality questionnaire. Mealtime behaviors of parents and children were coded for controlling parent feeding behaviors (physical manipulation, discouragement, verbal directives, bargaining, behavior correction directives, and statements about eating) and difficult child behaviors (crying/whining, refusing food, and bargaining about eating). Code summaries controlled for video length (rpm). Timestamps allow for matching of the child behavior and parent response (in process). Each parent behavior was rated by independent coders for the presence of warmth and irritability (coding interrupted by COVID is being completed). Ratings were summed and averaged; irritability was subtracted from warmth to create an overall “warmth in delivery of control” variable.

Results: Preliminary analyses of complete data (n = 102) indicate that Spanish-speaking parents used more controlling behaviors (mean rpm = .62) than English-speaking parents at mealtimes (mean rpm = .01) (t (107) = -7.20, p < .00) but there was no significant difference in warmth. Results of MLR analyses predicting child dietary quality from controlling behaviors and warmth (r2 = .14, f = 3.98, p = .01) indicate a significant interaction between controlling behaviors and warmth whereby controlling behaviors predicted higher child dietary quality in the context of higher warmth.

Conclusion: Preliminary findings suggest the use of controlling food-related behaviors is more common in Spanish-speaking families and that, when done with warmth, do not have deleterious effects on child dietary outcomes. Additional analyses will test for differences in these patterns in the context of difficult child behaviors.

Authors

• Lenna L Ontai, University of California - Davis
  Presenting Author

• Jing Li, University of California - Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karina Rios, University of California, Merced
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mical Shilts, California State University, Sacramento
  Non-Presenting Author

• Louise Lanoue, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marilyn Townsend, University of California, Davis
  Non-Presenting Author