Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas

Early childhood provides an opportunity to optimize growth and development and parents play a fundamental role in forming healthy eating habits in their children. A healthy diet im-proves quality of life and wellbeing and reduces the risk of chronic disease. The aim of this research was to explore p...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tartaglia, J., McIntosh, M., Jancey, Jonine, Scott, Jane, Begley, Andrea
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/82727
_version_ 1848764539150008320
author Tartaglia, J.
McIntosh, M.
Jancey, Jonine
Scott, Jane
Begley, Andrea
author_facet Tartaglia, J.
McIntosh, M.
Jancey, Jonine
Scott, Jane
Begley, Andrea
author_sort Tartaglia, J.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Early childhood provides an opportunity to optimize growth and development and parents play a fundamental role in forming healthy eating habits in their children. A healthy diet im-proves quality of life and wellbeing and reduces the risk of chronic disease. The aim of this research was to explore parents’ experiences of feeding 0–5-year-old children and food literacy behaviors. This qualitative study employed a general inductive inquiry approach. Participants were recruited through community-based parenting organizations in disadvantaged areas. Eight focus groups were conducted with 67 parents (92.5% female) living in socially disadvantaged areas within met-ropolitan Perth of Western Australia. Ten themes emerged from the preliminary analysis and were aligned with domains of relatedness, autonomy, and competence within the self-determination the-ory. Themes included relatedness (1) feeding is emotional, (2) variations in routine and feeding structures, (3) external influences, autonomy (4) power struggles, (5) it must be quick and easy, (6) lack of strategies for feeding autonomy, competency (7) whatever works, (8) healthy is important but for some unattainable, (9) improvements in food literacy skills, and (10) conflicting information overload. This research informed the development of a food literacy program for parents. Parents faced many challenges when trying to provide healthy food. This research has shown parents would benefit from support to achieve healthy eating practices for their families.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T11:20:58Z
format Journal Article
id curtin-20.500.11937-82727
institution Curtin University Malaysia
institution_category Local University
language eng
last_indexed 2025-11-14T11:20:58Z
publishDate 2021
publisher MDPI
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling curtin-20.500.11937-827272021-03-16T07:57:51Z Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas Tartaglia, J. McIntosh, M. Jancey, Jonine Scott, Jane Begley, Andrea feeding practices focus groups food literacy food parenting practices nutrition responsive feeding self-determination theory Early childhood provides an opportunity to optimize growth and development and parents play a fundamental role in forming healthy eating habits in their children. A healthy diet im-proves quality of life and wellbeing and reduces the risk of chronic disease. The aim of this research was to explore parents’ experiences of feeding 0–5-year-old children and food literacy behaviors. This qualitative study employed a general inductive inquiry approach. Participants were recruited through community-based parenting organizations in disadvantaged areas. Eight focus groups were conducted with 67 parents (92.5% female) living in socially disadvantaged areas within met-ropolitan Perth of Western Australia. Ten themes emerged from the preliminary analysis and were aligned with domains of relatedness, autonomy, and competence within the self-determination the-ory. Themes included relatedness (1) feeding is emotional, (2) variations in routine and feeding structures, (3) external influences, autonomy (4) power struggles, (5) it must be quick and easy, (6) lack of strategies for feeding autonomy, competency (7) whatever works, (8) healthy is important but for some unattainable, (9) improvements in food literacy skills, and (10) conflicting information overload. This research informed the development of a food literacy program for parents. Parents faced many challenges when trying to provide healthy food. This research has shown parents would benefit from support to achieve healthy eating practices for their families. 2021 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/82727 10.3390/ijerph18041496 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ MDPI fulltext
spellingShingle feeding practices
focus groups
food literacy
food parenting practices
nutrition
responsive feeding
self-determination theory
Tartaglia, J.
McIntosh, M.
Jancey, Jonine
Scott, Jane
Begley, Andrea
Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title_full Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title_fullStr Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title_full_unstemmed Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title_short Exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
title_sort exploring feeding practices and food literacy in parents with young children from disadvantaged areas
topic feeding practices
focus groups
food literacy
food parenting practices
nutrition
responsive feeding
self-determination theory
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/82727