Maria Michelle Papamichael, Eva Karaglani, Kalliopi Karatzi, Violeta Iotova, Jemina Kivelä, Greet Cardon, Flore De Vylder, Yuliya Bazdarska, Roumyana Dimova, Esther González-Gil, Paloma Flores-Barrantes, Stavros Liatis, Luis Moreno, Konstantinos Makrilakis, Yannis Manios and on behalf of the Feel4Diabetes-Study Group
Abstract
Adoption of healthy dietary and snacking habits could support optimumphysical andmental development in children as they define health in adulthood. This study assessed parameters associated with children’s snacking such as food home availability, parenting practices, and parents’ health beliefs. In this cross-sectional study 12 039 children, 49·4% boys 5–12 years, participating in the European Feel4Diabetes-Study were included.
Children’s weekly consumption of sweets and salty snacks, home availability of snacks, food parenting practices, and health beliefs were assessed via questionnaires. Logistic regression was applied to explore associations of a) home availability of snacks, b) food parenting practices (permissiveness and rewarding with snacks) and c) parent’s opinions on deterministic health beliefs with children’s consumption of sweets and salty snacks. Results showed that home availability (sweets: ORadj: 4·76, 95%CI: 4·32, 5·23; salty snacks: ORadj: 6·56, 95 % CI: 5·64, 7·61), allowing to consume (sweets: ORadj: 3·29, 95 % CI: 2·95, 3·67; saltysnacks: ORadj: 3·41, 95%CI: 2·98, 3·90) and rewardingwith sweets/salty snacks (sweets: ORadj: 2·69, 95 % CI: 2·23, 3·24; salty snacks: ORadj: 4·34, 95 % CI: 3·57, 5·28) ‘sometimes/or less frequently’ compared to ‘always/or often’ were associated with lower weekly consumption of sweets and snacks. Parents’ disagreement compared to agreementwith deterministic health beliefs and inattentive eatingwere associatedwith lower consumption of salty snacks and sweets in children. Overall, the findings of this study indicate that attempts to promote healthy snacking habits in children should aim to improve parental dietary habits, food parenting practices, health beliefs, and reducing home availability of unhealthy foods and snacks.
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Papamichael 2021 BJN Contribution home avail sweets
