![]() While parents tend to use these latter strategies with positive intentions, to encourage healthy eating or protect against weight gain, they can have unintended consequences on a child’s food preferences, behavioral inhibition and self-regulation. Parental feeding practices linked to weight gain, disordered or unhealthy eating behaviors include: restriction by either reducing child dietary intake or limiting snack food intake, pressure to eat, and non-nutritive instrumental practices, such as using food as a reward or to pacify. For example, parental feeding practices associated with the development of healthy eating include: repeated exposure to healthy and novel foods, positive reinforcement (using verbal praise) for healthy food choices, positive social modelling and monitoring of highly-palatable, low nutrient foods. ![]() Some parental feeding practices are more likely to foster healthy eating patterns in children, while others are more likely to lead to unhealthy or disordered eating. Parents shape the development of children’s eating behaviors in a number of ways, but particularly through parental feeding practices the “specific behavioral strategies parents employ to control what, how much or when their children eat” (p.4, ). Parents however, not only influence these other factors, they also create the environment within which food is sourced, prepared, consumed, celebrated, resisted or refused. Results suggest future interventions need to stress the important role positive body image plays in encouraging healthy attitudes to food and weight management, and the benefits positive body image can have on the health and mental health of preschool children.Ĭhildren’s diets can be influenced by a range of factors, including education environments (e.g., kindergarten or childcare) and media. ![]() Professionals’ responses confirmed these findings. They desired more practical information about how to avoid encouraging negative body image when promoting healthy eating. Parents appeared knowledgeable about nutrition and accessed information about healthy eating across a range of resources though rarely accessed information about child body image. Body image was most commonly considered a problem in early adolescence and often not an issue of relevance in early childhood. Most often parents defined child body image as a child’s physical appearance and did not mention thoughts and feelings related to appearance or body experiences. Parents described healthy eating as a variety, balance, and range of foods as well as limiting certain foods, such as the intake of sugar, salt, and processed foods. Eleven Early Childhood Professionals ( M age = 51.04, 100 % female, 64 % university degree, 64 % Maternal and Child Health Nurses, 36 % Childcare Centre Directors) completed individual telephone interviews. ![]() Forty three parents ( M age = 36.95 years, 93 % female, 79 % university degree) participated across 9 focus groups. The current study investigated what parents (of children aged 1–6 years) understand about child healthy eating and body image, and what they would like in future interventions, by using structured focus groups with parents, and individual interviews with Early Childhood Professionals. Interventions for parents to encourage healthy eating in children often do not address parental feeding practices and body image development.
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