Family Environment (COOKING RESEARCH STUDIES)

The purpose of this 2018 study was to determine whether parent feeding styles are related to the dietary quality of dinners they serve to their children. The participants included low-income minority families in Houston, Texas. The subjects agreed to take photos of their dinners at home on 3 occasions. While the overall dietary quality of the meals could be measured by using the Healthy Eating Index 2010 (HEI-2010), questionnaires completed by the parents were needed to assess their feeding styles. The 4 styles of parent feeding were authoritative (highly demanding and responsive), authoritarian (highly demanding and low responsiveness), indulgent (less demanding and highly responsive), or uninvolved (less demanding and low responsiveness). The analysis model revealed that the authoritative parent feeding style was linked with significantly higher dietary quality of the meals, when compared with the authoritarian feeding style. This study provides evidence that parent feeding styles contribute to the overall dietary quality of children’s meals in low-income families. In addition, the authoritative feeding style was associated with the highest dietary quality of the 4 feeding styles tested.