Poster #101 - Fathers' Responsive Feeding Behaviors During Family Mealtimes: An Exploratory Study

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Health, Growth, Injury

Integrative Statement

Introduction:

Obesity in young children is a pressing public health problem with immediate and long-term health consequences including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and certain types of cancer (Reilly & Kelly, 2011). A rapidly expanding body of research suggests that children are protected from obesity when parents adopt responsive feeding approaches as part of their food-related parenting practices. Unfortunately, the vast majority of obesity-related parenting research is based on mothers. Results from a recent systematic reviews shows that fewer than 8 studies on parenting and childhood obesity prevention have focused on fathers compared to 244 studies that have focused on mothers (Davison et al., 2016). Although there is limited data highlighting the amount of time fathers spend in tasks such as preparing meals and grocery shopping, we know very little about the nature of fathers’ food-relating parenting beyond these time estimates. This poster summarizes findings from an observational study designed to be an important first step in overcoming this gap in the research literature by examining men’s participation in responsive feeding practices during the early childhood years.

Methods:

Participants were 110 families of 18-24 month old children (see Table 1 for demographics) pulled from a larger longitudinal birth-cohort study (N=451) examining the determinants of early childhood obesity. Trained research assistants conducted a two-hour home visit, during which a family mealtime was videotaped. Coding of the videos was conducted with Mangold’s INTERACT software (Mangold International, 2016), designed to apply complex multilevel coding schemes with pre-recorded data. A global coding scheme (i.e., responsive vs. nonresponsive) based on the Vaughn et al. (2016) content map was used to assess fathers’ engagement in 3 higher-order food parenting constructs (i.e., coercive control, structure and autonomy support) and 19 subdomains within these three constructs (see Table 2).

Preliminary Results:

Preliminary coding of five of the responsive feeding subdomains within the Structure food parenting construct represented in the content map (i.e., atmosphere of meal; limited/guided choices; family presence; food availability; food accessibility) revealed distinct patterns in fathers’ responsive feeding behaviors. For example, 86% of the fathers were responsive in their approach to “making food available” to the child. In contrast, 64% of fathers were coded as being nonresponsive in making “limited/guided choices” in the foods provided to their children, and 82% of fathers were coded as being nonresponsive in making “foods accessible” to their children. Data analysis is ongoing. For the full poster, codes across the 19 subdomains will be combined to apply a cumulative risk model approach with the data to identify those aspects of fathers’ responsive feeding behaviors that are related to child BMI trajectories, and that could be targeted for training efforts designed to encourage responsive feeding practices.

Implications:

Results from this observational study will provide new and important insight on fathers’ participation in weight-related parenting behaviors. Such findings will play an important role in the development of intervention programs that target childhood obesity prevention.

Authors

• Brent McBride, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  Presenting Author

• Kelly K. Bost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alyssa Parsons, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexandra Lundquist, University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
  Non-Presenting Author