Sugary food and drinks-related parenting patterns and young children’s food consumption

Abstract Background Parents enforce rules and restrictions related to sugary food and drinks (SFD) at home to enhance the quality of their children's diet. Our aims were 1) to identify SFD-related parenting patterns, and 2) to investigate the associations between the SFD-related parenting patterns and children's food consumption. Methods We used cross-sectional data from 564 Finnish 3- to 6-year-olds participating in the baseline of the DAGIS Intervention (2017). Parents responded to a set of 16 statements focused on practices restricting SFD, with responses arranged on a 5-point likert scale. In addition, parents completed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) assessing children's food consumption. We performed principal component analysis (PCA) to identify existing SFD-related parenting patterns. We calculated a children's Healthy Food Intake Index (HFII) using FFQ data. Linear regression models were conducted to assess the associations between SFD-related parenting patterns and children's HFII. All models were adjusted for the children's age. Results PCA revealed three SFD-related parenting patterns: restricting SFD consumption, restricting SFD accessibility, and restricting SFD availability. All three SFD-related parenting patterns showed significant positive associations with the children's HFII in regression models. We further investigated these associations by adding family's socioeconomic factors (parental educational level and household relative income) into the models. Restricting SFD availability remained statistically significantly associated with the children's HFII after adjusting the model for family's socioeconomic factors (B = 0.46, p < 0.001). Conclusions Future health promotion interventions may target restricting SFD availability to improve children's food consumption regardless of socioeconomic background. Key messages • Parents may impose SFD-related restrictions as a measure of improving the diet quality among children. • Restricting SFD availability may be an effective modifiable factor of the diet quality of the children in all socioeconomic backgrounds.