Spicing up food interactions: Development of a healthy food education activity targeting fathers and their young children

Exploring the role of adolescents in healthier, more sustainable family meals: A decision study on meat consumption

OBJECTIVE

Can children's preferences make family meals healthier and more sustainable? Extending cultural evolution theory, we explored the children's role in a possible bottom-up transmission of meat preferences to their parents in the context of family meals.

METHODS

Fifty-seven parent-child dyads from Germany (age: Mchildren = 15.9 years, Mparents = 50.5 years; 67% daughters, 93% mothers; 14% of children and 0% of parents followed a vegetarian/vegan diet; 82% of children were still in school; 42% of parents had a bachelor's degree or higher) decided on a family meal through discussion, which was videotaped. Before and after discussing, dyad members separately stated their preferred meat proportion for the family meal.

RESULTS

In contrast to our hypotheses, on average children neither preferred less meat nor had a stronger influence on meat proportions in family meals than their parents. Daughters-despite a considerably lower preference for meat-did not reduce meat at family meals more than sons. Rather than demographic characteristics (i.e., age, gender), it was specific behaviors of children or dyads that predicted stronger influence on and eventually lower proportion of meat at family meals. These specific behaviors were following a vegetarian/vegan diet, general conflicts about meat-related aspects of family meals, and-in tendency-mentioning sustainability arguments in discussions.

CONCLUSIONS

Children can be part of the change toward healthier and more sustainable family foodways-which could improve the family's health-if they themselves eat accordingly and actively advocate for it.

Bringing down barriers to children's healthy eating: a critical review of opportunities, within a complex food system

This narrative review revises the scientific evidence of recent years on healthy eating in children and adolescents, making sense of promising avenues of action, from a food system perspective. A conceptual framework is provided to better understand how eating habits of children and adolescents are shaped to identify key multisectoral approaches that should be implemented to promote healthier diets. The following influencing factors are discussed: individual factors (physiological and psychological factors, food preferences and food literacy competencies), factors within the personal and socio-cultural food environments, external food environments, and the supply chain. In each section, the main barriers to healthy eating are briefly discussed focussing on how to overcome them. Finally, a discussion with recommendations of actions is provided, anchored in scientific knowledge, and transferable to the general public, industry, and policymakers. We highlight that multidisciplinary approaches are not enough, a systems approach, with a truly holistic view, is needed. Apart from introducing systemic changes, a variety of interventions can be implemented at different levels to foster healthier diets in children through fostering healthier and more sustainable food environments, facilitating pleasurable sensory experiences, increasing their food literacy, and enhancing their agency by empowering them to make better food related decisions. Acknowledging children as unique individuals is required, through interpersonal interactions, as well as their role in their environments. Actions should aim to enable children and adolescents as active participants within sustainable food systems, to support healthier dietary behaviours that can be sustained throughout life, impacting health at a societal level.

Meat reduction meets family reality: Negotiating sustainable diets in households with adolescents

Limited research exists on how the transition towards more sustainable eating takes place at the meso-level of family decision-making, or how children and adolescents engage in and possibly influence the process towards more sustainable diets in families. In this paper, we study how public recommendations that encourage reducing the consumption of meat for the benefit of both health and climate are interpreted, negotiated, and acted upon in Danish families with adolescents (aged 15-20) residing at home. We use novel methodological stimuli, including vignettes and a visual sorting task, embedded in qualitative, in-depth interviews to elicit data on parents' and adolescents' everyday meat consumption/reduction behaviours. Findings reveal that a desire to uphold harmony and family cohesion serves as simultaneous drivers and barriers to reducing meat consumption. Further, we identify barriers to change in the gendered work hidden in the tasks of planning the integration of more sustainable, green dishes into the meal repertoires. Implications are drawn for social marketers, marketers, and public policymakers, encouraging these to use insights into family food decision-making processes as a lever to facilitate the needed green transition of diets in family households.

Where is the father? Challenges and solutions to the inclusion of fathers in child feeding and nutrition research

Despite an increasing acknowledgement of fathers' involvement in and impact on children's lives, fathers remain underrepresented in child feeding and childhood obesity prevention research, interventions, and actions. Built on our own experiences with conducting research with fathers and recent evidence on this topic, this Research in Practice article has three aims. It will first substantiate the importance of including and studying fathers in the field of child feeding and childhood obesity prevention based on recent study results. Secondly, the article will present and discuss barriers to fathers' inclusion and participation (why isn't it happening?), among other issues, by drawing on sociological and gender ideological insights. Finally, it will provide recommendations and suggestions related to recruitment, focus and methods that can facilitate fathers' involvement in future research, interventions, and practice. Taken together, this article aims to provide tools for giving fathers a voice in the field of child nutrition and by doing so, to decrease maternal-only "burden" of care. We hope our experiences and theoretical reflections will inspire and support researchers and practitioners to be as successful as possible in the realm of family care.