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Parenting styles, food-related parenting practices, and children’s healthy eating: A mediation analysis to examine relationships between parenting and child diet
While the authoritative parenting style is associated with healthier children (based on weight and diet) and the authoritarian and permissive parenting styles is linked with unhealthy eating, this 2018 study addresses the limited research conducted so far on the mechanisms that mediate these relationships. Lopez et al. tested whether these same parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive) correlate with food-related parenting practices such as mealtime structural practices (e.g., eating meals as a family), parent modeling of healthy food, and household food rules. Another test determined whether these parenting practices mediated the interaction between parenting styles and children’s diet. Questionnaires on parenting practices were completed by mothers, while the children were assessed on their diet quality, and consumption of sugars, fruits, and vegetables. The results indicated that the associations between parenting practices and diet quality scores were affected by mealtime structure. This research encourages further investigation into how these mealtime structural practices can be modified by parents to encourage healthy eating in children. [NPID: parenting style, parenting practices, healthy children, healthy eating, child diet quality, diet quality, better quality diet, meal structure, authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting, permissive parenting]
Year: 2018
