I did eat my vegetables. Agreement between parent and child food intake diaries

Policy and Food Consumption: What Nutrition Guidelines Are Swiss Children Meeting and What Determines Adherence?

Objectives: To describe the adherence of the children to the Swiss Society for Nutrition (SSN) dietary guidelines, assess determinants of adherence, and compare these findings with a previous study in the same population.

Methods: Data from 312 children ages 5–12 were collected through a survey and a 2-day food record. The associations of children- and parent-related factors with adherence of the children to guidelines were assessed by logistic regression analyses.

Results: SSN guidelines were not met for any food category, although there were improvements: vegetables (4.5% in this study vs. 0% in the previous study), sweets, snacks, and soft drinks (SSD) (12.5 vs. 9.5%), and fruit (45.5 vs. 10.4%). Higher Body Mass Index (BMI) in children was associated with higher adherence to guidelines for protein intake. Higher parental BMI was associated with higher adherence to vegetables. Parental lower educational level was associated with higher adherence for cereal.

Conclusion: Despite improvements since the last eating behavior assessment in this population, children consume too little fruit, vegetables, cereal, and milk and dairy products, and too much SSD and proteins. Further efforts are needed to promote healthy eating to children and achieve adherence to guidelines.

Young Children's Nutrition During the COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown: A Comparative Study

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most countries took precautionary steps to save their citizens by initiating a lockdown and stopping all social activities by closing schools, companies, entertainment places, markets, gardens, and other social gathering places. As children stayed at home with no physical activities, their weight may have increased. The purpose of this study was to examine the link between fast food, sugars, or soft drinks and the ongoing domestic lockdown of the COVID-19 pandemic. This phenomenon was studied in three different cities from three different countries (Saudi Arabia, Britain, and Turkey) from the perspective of children's parents. The study sought to address three research questions regarding children's well-being during the COVID-19 lockdown period. First, was children's nutrition affected during this period? Second, did children's weight increase? Third, were there any statistically significant differences in children's dietary patterns based on their gender and nationality? A questionnaire was administered to 330 parents of children aged four to seven years in the three targeted countries. The study found that most parents cared about their children's nutrition and prepared food at home (96.1%) during the lockdown. Sixty-three percent of parents indicated that children did not gain weight. Additionally, differences in children's nutritional systems were found between Saudi and Turkish children; the nutritional system of the Turkish children was better than that of Saudi children during the lockdown. Additionally, there were statistically significant differences in children's nutrition due to gender, with better nutrition for boys than for girls.

Parent-child agreement in different domains of child behavior and health

AIM

The present study aimed to investigate and compare parent-child agreement in different domains of child health and behavior.

METHODS

Data were collected between 2011 and 2019 within the framework of the LIFE Child study (Germany). Different subgroups of 10- to 12-year-old children and their parents (n (max) = 692) completed questionnaires on several health behaviors (diet, media use, physical activity, sleep), parameters of health (behavioral strengths and difficulties, psychosomatic complaints), and school grades. Agreement between child and parent reports was evaluated using weighted kappa coefficients. Furthermore, the frequencies of different types of (dis)agreement (parent report > child report, same response, child report > parent report) were assessed and checked for associations with child or parent gender.

RESULTS

Agreement between child and parent reports varied from low to almost perfect, with the greatest levels of agreement for school grades and organized physical activity, and the lowest for dizziness, sleep duration, and the consumption of potatoes. Child gender had no significant effect on parent-child agreement. In contrast, the findings suggest that parent gender had some effect on agreement levels, with higher agreement for certain psychosomatic complaints when parent reports were completed by the mother, and higher agreement for white bread consumption if they were completed by the father. For some of the questionnaire items (especially those relating to behavioral difficulties and psychosomatic complaints, but also to the consumption of individual food products and mobile phone use), the type of (dis)agreement differed depending on child or parent gender.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that the perceptions and reporting strategies of children and their parents can diverge considerably, in particular for behavior that is not easily observable or measurable.

Does additional support provided through e-mail or SMS in a Web-based Social Marketing program improve children's food consumption? A Randomized Controlled Trial

Background

The FAN Social Marketing program was developed to improve dietary and physical activity habits of families with children in Ticino, Switzerland. The aim of this study was to examine if the effects of the program on children’s food intake differed by intervention group.

Methods

Effects of the FAN program were tested through a Randomized Controlled Trial. The program lasted 8 weeks, during which participants received tailored communication about nutrition and physical activity. Families were randomly allocated to one of three groups, where the parent received the intervention by the Web (G1), Web + e-mail (G2) or Web + SMS (G3). Children in all groups received tailored print letters by post. Children’s food consumption was assessed at baseline and immediate post intervention using a 7-day food diary. Generalized linear mixed models with child as a random effect and with time, treatment group, and the time by treatment interaction as fixed effects were used to test the impact of the intervention.

Results

Analyses were conducted with a sample of 608 children. After participating in FAN the marginal means of daily consumption of fruit changed from 0.95 to 1.12 in G1, from 0.82 to 0.94 in G2, and from 0.93 to 1.18 in G3. The margins of the daily consumption of sweets decreased in each group (1.67 to 1.56 in G1, 1.71 to 1.49 in G2, and 1.72 to 1.62 in G3). The change in vegetable consumption observed from pre to post intervention in G3 (from 1.13 to 1.21) was significantly different from that observed in G1 (from 1.21 to 1.17).

Conclusions

A well-designed Web-based Social Marketing intervention complemented with print letters can help improve children’s consumption of water, fruit, soft drinks, and sweets. The use of SMS to support greater behavior change, in addition to Web-based communication, resulted only in a small significant positive change for vegetables, while the use of e-mail in addition to Web did not result in any significant difference.

Trial registration

The trial was retrospectively registered in the ISRCTN registry (ID ISRCTN48730279).

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (10.1186/s12937-018-0334-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.