Food Parenting Practices Mediate Relationships Between Parent Sex and Adolescent Food Intake During Independent Eating Occasions
This study highlights the complex relationship between parenting practices, parent gender, and teenage eating habits, suggesting that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to promoting healthy eating in adolescents.
College of Health researcher(s)
College unit(s)
Abstract
Objectives
To determine whether associations between parent sex and adolescents’ dietary intake during independent eating occasions (iEOs) (junk foods, sugary foods, sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and fruits/vegetables) are mediated by food parenting practices.
Methods
A cross-sectional study measuring food parenting practices and adolescent iEO food group intake via an online survey (Nov-Dec 2021). The associations between parental sex, adolescent iEOs, and the potential mediation effect of food parenting practices were examined using classical mediation. Significance values and confidence intervals were derived using a bootstrap method (5000 iterations). Significance was considered p ≤ 0.05.
Results
A racially and ethnically diverse sample of parent/adolescent dyads (n = 622, 211 males, 411 female parents) was recruited from a national Qualtrics panel database reporting household income as ≤ 185% of federal poverty income guidelines.The food parenting practice “monitoring” mediated the association between parental sex and SSB intake (indirect effect: beta = -0.04, CI = -0.08:-0.02, p < 0.05) and parental sex and fruit and vegetable intake (indirect effect: beta = -0.06, CI = -0.1:-0.03, p < 0.05). The food parenting practice “indulgence” mediated the association between parental sex and SSB intake (indirect effect: beta = -0.05, CI = -0.08:-0.03, p< 0.05) and between parental sex and fruit and vegetable intake (indirect effect: beta = -0.06, CI = -0.09:-0.03, p< 0.05).
Conclusions
Parental monitoring and indulgence were related to increased intakes of both SSB and fruits and vegetables. Male parents reported higher monitoring and indulgent food parenting behaviors. Parental monitoring and indulgence appear to promote intake of fruits and vegetables; however, they may not be a good strategy to decrease SSB intake. Our results indicated that combinations of food parenting practices probably are needed to both promote healthy foods and decrease intake of SSB. Associations between parent sex and adolescent iEO SSB and fruit and vegetable intake were mediated by monitoring and indulgent food parenting practices.