What Factors Predict the Use of Coercive Food Parenting Practices among Mothers of Young Children? An Examination of Food Literacy, Disordered Eating and Parent Demographics

Lyza Norton, Joy Parkinson, Neil Harris and Laura M. Hart
Additional contact information
Lyza Norton: Department of Social Marketing, Griffith University, 1 Parklands Drive, Southport, QLD 4215, Australia
Joy Parkinson: Department of Social Marketing, Griffith University, 1 Parklands Drive, Southport, QLD 4215, Australia
Neil Harris: Department of Public Health, Griffith University, 1 Parklands Drive, Southport, QLD 4215, Australia
Laura M. Hart: Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, 207 Bouverie Street, Carlton, VIC 3010, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Parents have the most significant influence on the development of young children’s eating patterns. Understanding what parental factors best predict specific negative feeding practices is important for designing preventive interventions. We examined the relationship between parents’ use of coercive food parenting practices (pressure to eat and restriction) and parents’ disordered eating, food literacy, Body Mass Index (BMI) and socio-economic status (SES). Adult mothers, with a mean age of 33 years, at least one child aged between 6 months and 5 years and living in Australia ( n = 819) completed an online questionnaire. Regression models were used to examine predictors of pressure to eat and restriction, respectively. Although the amount of variance accounted for by the models was small, maternal eating disorder symptoms were found to be the most important predictor of coercive food parenting practices. This finding has implications for early nutrition education, which has traditionally focused heavily on nutrition literacy. Parental disordered eating may be a more important preventive target and thus including behavioral strategies for positive feeding practices may better assist mothers in promoting positive eating habits with their children, rather than traditional approaches that aim to increase nutrition literacy.

Keywords: food parenting practices; food literacy; disordered eating; mothers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10538/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10538/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10538-:d:651560

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().