Family Food Talk and Obesity Risk in Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Preteens

University Of Michigan At Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

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Abstract

? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Childhood obesity is a significant public health problem with 17% of US children being overweight or obese. Once established, obesity tracks into later childhood and adulthood. Parents are vital in shaping child eating behavior, dietary intake, and ultimately obesity risk. Research implicates family mealtimes as important for child obesity prevention and development of healthy eating habits, but findings are not consistent. One reason for the inconsistent associations may be that a substantial proportion of parent-child interactions around food occur outside the mealtime context and have historically been unmeasured. Eating outside of mealtimes, particularly snacking after school hours has increased in recent years and is proposed as contributing to excessive child weight gain and a potentially important context for child socialization around food and eating. Yet, little is known about: 1) naturalistic parent-child interactions around food (i.e., food parenting) outside of mealtimes; 2) how child factors (e.g., persistence in requesting snacks) may contribute; or 3) how food interactions outside of mealtimes vary across development. Understanding food talk outside of mealtimes holds promise for future intervention development to prevent childhood obesity. The proposed work would also fill a critical methodological gap, as extant studies rely on parents' self-reported feeding, observed structured laboratory interactions, or family mealtimes. No prior study has observed parent-child food talk between meals in relation to child obesity risk. Leveraging an ongoing cross-sectional study, we propose to analyze naturalistic parent-child interactions around food and eating during after school hours in relation to detailed, multi-method assessments of child eating behavior, dietary intake, and parent feeding style, family mealtime interactions, and child adiposity. We will use discourse-analysis and behavioral-coding approaches to assess the process and content of naturally occurring parent and child talk about food and eating based on audio recordings using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) system. Our team has pioneered use of this system to study parenting and is uniquely expert in assessing food parenting and child eating behavior. Our aims are, in families with children ages 12-24 months (n=40), 3-5 years (n=40), and 10-13 years (n=60): Aim 1. To assess frequency, discourse features, and emotional tone of naturalistic parent-child interactions involving food or eating outside of mealtime (food talk), and whether these differ by age. Aim 2. To assess whether food talk is associated with parent-reported child eating behaviors and child dietary intake. Aim 3. To assess whether food talk is associated with parent-reported feeding styles and observed family mealtime interactions. Aim 4. To assess whether food talk is associated with child adiposity indicators (BMIz, skinfolds, and weight status) and with rate of change in BMIz across a six-month period.