Reducing adult obesity in childhood: Parental influence on the food choices of children

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to identify the complexities and pressures faced by parents when trying to embed knowledge of healthy eating in their children’s lifestyles. Design: Qualitative design using focus groups with parents and children aged 10 to 11 years. Methods: The research was conducted in two phases. The first phase involved five focus groups with 47 children. The results of these focus groups then informed the development of a second phase consisting of three focus groups with 15 parents of these children. The findings from the children’s focus groups were then discussed with parents to explore their understandings and perceptions of how children perceived health, diet and lifestyle. Results: Parents are one of the main influences when it comes to shaping their children’s decisions in relation to healthy eating. Children, but also parents, appeared to only have a partial knowledge about food and diet, and parents did not know how to translate this knowledge into decisions about healthy eating. Parents in this study felt under pressure when trying to incorporate healthy messages within the context of their own lives and they also wanted to feel more confident about the role they can play in the nutritional choices of their children. Conclusion: Healthy eating strategies may need to move away from focusing solely on parents as conduits of knowledge but instead see both them and their children as playing an active part in designing interactive strategies about making healthy food choices.