| Summary: | Issue Addressed: Lifelong eating behaviours are established in childhood. Improving
parents' food literacy skills is essential, as parents play a fundamental role in estab lishing their children's healthy eating behaviours and preferences for nutritious food.
This paper describes the development and evaluation of an innovative program that
combines food literacy with positive parent feeding practices, targeting parents in
disadvantaged areas of Western Australia.
Methods: The Food Sensations® for Parents five-week program was delivered to par ticipants from community-based parenting organisations during 2020 and 2021. For mative research and a pre-post evaluation design were adopted.
Results: Pre- and post-evaluation data were collected from 224 participants (96%
female). There was a statistically significant improvement in the mean score for
13 food literacy behaviours, 10 positive parenting feeding practices and a mean
increase in parents' daily vegetable intake of 1/3 serve. Participants reported signifi cantly greater net improvements in food literacy behaviours than feeding practices,
the largest being the Use a nutrition information panel to make food choices (33.1%).
Multivariate logistic regression analyses found English as a first language, being older
than 35, and from a higher Socio-Economic Index for Areas resulted in a higher likeli hood of positive changes in behaviours and practices.
Conclusions: The findings indicate that the program is effective in improving the fre quency of use of food literacy behaviours, positive parenting feeding practices and
increasing vegetable consumption.
So What?: Analysing improvements in food literacy behaviours and feeding practices
provides clarity on what change can be expected with a five-week parent program.
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