Diet and the Parent-Child Relationship

Using an Australian sample of 579 mother-child dyads (average age of child = 3.05 years; 45% boys), this 2018 prospective study explored the direct and indirect associations between family stress with diet quality of the child. Higher levels of family stress correlated with poorer diet quality (lower consumption of fruits and vegetables) over time, while a bad relationship between the parent and the child was indirectly related to the eating of less fruit by the child. Webb et al. (2018) highlight that the relatively uncommon indicators of family stress, namely maternal physical and psychological health difficulties, were consistently connected (concurrently and prospectively) with lower diet quality. These findings prove that further research on the parent-child relationship are warranted, particularly focusing on modifiable factors that can predict the children’s diet quality over time.