Barriers to Healthy Family Dinners and Preventing Child Obesity: Focus Group Discussions with Parents of 5-to-8-Year-Old Children
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants
2.2. Measures and Procedure
2.3. Data Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Time
3.2. Lack of Planning
3.3. Lack of Skills/Awareness
3.4. External Factors
3.5. Food-Related Challenges
3.6. Solutions to Overcome Mealtime Barriers
4. Discussion
4.1. Common Barriers to Family Meals
4.2. Potential Solutions for Overcoming Barriers to Family Meals
4.3. Limitations, Strengths, and Future Directions
5. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A. Focus Group Discussion and Questions
- As a parent of a 5-to-8-year-old, what are your needs, challenges, and expectations regarding the prevention of child obesity? (Spend more time here, the goal would be about 10 min.)
- What connections do you see between routines, child obesity, and health? (~4 min)
- What are the challenges you face in achieving consistent and/or healthy routines? (~4 min)
- What would make it easier for you to achieve consistent and healthy routines? (~4 min)
- What would you like to see in an interactive website? (~4 min)
- What would the website need for the parents to actually use it? (~4 min)
- How much time commitment could it require?
- What might be good ways to encourage or support continuing participation/engagement in the program?
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Individual Demographic Variables | Child Mean (sd) | Parent Mean (sd) |
---|---|---|
Age (in years) | 6.72 (1.07) | 36.79 (6.34) |
Sex | Girls = 26 (61.9%) Boys = 16 (38.1%) | Mothers = 36 (85.7%) Fathers = 6 (14.3%) |
Child BMI Percentile a | 60.39 (32.44) | -- |
Parent BMI | -- | 24.92 (5.69) |
Healthy Weight Status % | 64.9% | 61.9% |
Overweight or Obese % | 35.1% | 38.1% |
Race
| 73.8% 9.5% 14.3% 2.4% | 78.6% 9.5% 9.5% 2.4% |
Family Demographic Variables and Mealtime Climate Questions | Mean (sd) Or % | |
Parent Education Level
| 4.8% 11.9% 42.9% 40.5% | |
Family Income (mean) | $51,400 ($30,454) | |
Marital Status
| 78.6% 11.9% 7.1% 2.4% | |
Total Number of People in the Home | 4.70 (1.51) | |
Family Mealtime Climate Questions “Our family regularly eats the main meal together”
| 4.8% 14.3% 38.1% 42.9% | |
“In our family, mealtime is planned in advance”
| 11.9% 14.3% 45.2% 28.6% | |
“In our family, we feel it is important that we eat together.”
| 2.4% 11.9% 21.4% 64.3% | |
“In our family, everyone is expected to be home for the main meal.”
| 14.3% 9.5% 38.1% 38.1% | |
“In our family, everyone has a specific role or job to do (during the meal).”
| 30.9% 35.7% 28.6% 4.8% | |
“In our family, mealtime is flexible; people eat whenever they want.” (This item is reverse coded when calculating the mealtime climate scale.)
| 73.8% 19.0% 2.4% 4.8% |
Barrier Theme: Subtheme | Description (# of Comments) | Representative Quotations |
---|---|---|
Time: Parental Work Schedules | Parents’ work schedules conflict with mealtimes/healthy mealtime habits. (12) |
|
Time: Overscheduling/ Time Crunch | Overscheduling of children/parents creates a barrier. (22) |
|
Time: Convenience | It is more convenient time-wise to not teach healthy habits. (13) |
|
Time: Mis-Matched Schedules | One parent works an unusual shift, and thus work schedules are mismatched. (10) |
|
Lack of Planning: How to Plan? | Parents are unsure how to plan. (12) |
|
Lack of Planning: Failed Plans | Parents make plans, but they fail to complete them. (4) |
|
Skills/Awareness: Cooking Skills | Parents lack cooking skills. (5) |
|
Skills/Awareness: Nutritional Factors | Parents lack nutritional awareness about foods. (21) |
|
External Factors: Advertising | Advertisements create difficulty in teaching healthy eating habits. (10) |
|
External Factors: School/ Daycare/Extended Family | Outside sources create difficulties when teaching healthy eating habits. (8) |
|
Food Related Challenges: Picky Eating | Parents find difficulty in teaching healthy eating habits to picky eaters. (13) |
|
Food Related Challenges: Food Allergies | Child has food allergies that limit meal options. (7) |
|
Parent Suggestion Theme | Description/ (# of Comments) | Representative Quotations |
---|---|---|
Child involvement/child decision | Children should have more choice and selection regarding foods and should be more involved in both meal planning and meal preparation. (34) |
|
Website suggestions | Nutrition and health websites should contain user-friendly features that make meal planning, nutrition education, and meal preparation easy for parents and children. (40) |
|
Parental control/rules | Parents should guide children to make healthy choices and have rules in place about what the children can and should eat. (10) |
|
Education/ external sources | Meals and resources should provide educational opportunities for children to learn more about healthy food choices and habits. (33) |
|
Recipe ideas | Ideas for meals and foods that are healthy, fast to prepare, balanced, cost-effective, and/or convenient to make. (15) |
|
Routine/ schedule | The importance of making mealtimes an established and consistent routine for the family (13) |
|
Plan/ prepare | Planning meals out in advance so that they are healthy and having healthy snack options ready for hungry kids (17) |
|
Social support | Using social support and technology to help with healthy meal ideas for families (4) |
|
Other | Any other ideas that would be helpful for increasing the healthy and consistency of child and family meals (14) |
|
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Share and Cite
Jones, B.L.; Orton, A.L.; Tindall, S.W.; Christensen, J.T.; Enosakhare, O.; Russell, K.A.; Robins, A.-M.; Larriviere-McCarl, A.; Sandres, J.; Cox, B.; et al. Barriers to Healthy Family Dinners and Preventing Child Obesity: Focus Group Discussions with Parents of 5-to-8-Year-Old Children. Children 2023, 10, 952. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10060952
Jones BL, Orton AL, Tindall SW, Christensen JT, Enosakhare O, Russell KA, Robins A-M, Larriviere-McCarl A, Sandres J, Cox B, et al. Barriers to Healthy Family Dinners and Preventing Child Obesity: Focus Group Discussions with Parents of 5-to-8-Year-Old Children. Children. 2023; 10(6):952. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10060952
Chicago/Turabian StyleJones, Blake L., Adam L. Orton, Spencer W. Tindall, Joshua T. Christensen, Osayamen Enosakhare, Keeley A. Russell, Anne-Marie Robins, Ana Larriviere-McCarl, Joseph Sandres, Braden Cox, and et al. 2023. "Barriers to Healthy Family Dinners and Preventing Child Obesity: Focus Group Discussions with Parents of 5-to-8-Year-Old Children" Children 10, no. 6: 952. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10060952