Parents’ Qualitative Perspectives on Child Asking for Fruit and Vegetables
USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center, Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nutrients 2017, 9(6), 575; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9060575
Received: 14 March 2017
/
Revised: 10 May 2017
/
Accepted: 31 May 2017
/
Published: 5 June 2017
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Dietary Intake and Behavior in Children)
Children can influence the foods available at home, but some ways of approaching a parent may be better than others; and the best way may vary by type of parent. This study explored how parents with different parenting styles would best receive their 10 to 14 years old child asking for fruits and vegetables (FV). An online parenting style questionnaire was completed and follow-up qualitative telephone interviews assessed home food rules, child influence on home food availability, parents’ preferences for being asked for food, and common barriers and reactions to their child’s FV requests. Parents (n = 73) with a 10 to 14 years old child were grouped into authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved parenting style categories based on responses to questionnaires, and interviewed. Almost no differences in responses were detected by parenting style or ethnicity. Parents reported their children had a voice in what foods were purchased and available at home and were receptive to their child’s asking for FV. The most important child asking characteristic was politeness, especially among authoritarian parents. Other important factors were asking in person, helping in the grocery store, writing requests on the grocery shopping list, and showing information they saw in the media. The barrier raising the most concern was FV cost, but FV quality and safety outside the home environment were also considerations.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
fruit; vegetables; asking skills; parenting style; children
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Beltran, A.; O’Connor, T.M.; Hughes, S.O.; Thompson, D.; Baranowski, J.; Nicklas, T.A.; Baranowski, T. Parents’ Qualitative Perspectives on Child Asking for Fruit and Vegetables. Nutrients 2017, 9, 575. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9060575
AMA Style
Beltran A, O’Connor TM, Hughes SO, Thompson D, Baranowski J, Nicklas TA, Baranowski T. Parents’ Qualitative Perspectives on Child Asking for Fruit and Vegetables. Nutrients. 2017; 9(6):575. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9060575
Chicago/Turabian StyleBeltran, Alicia, Teresia M. O’Connor, Sheryl O. Hughes, Debbe Thompson, Janice Baranowski, Theresa A. Nicklas, and Tom Baranowski. 2017. "Parents’ Qualitative Perspectives on Child Asking for Fruit and Vegetables" Nutrients 9, no. 6: 575. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu9060575
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
