ARS | Publication request: Cross-Country comparison of professionals' perceptions of the effectiveness of parenting practices to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in preschool children

Submitted to: Pediatric Academic Society
Publication Type: Abstract Only
Publication Acceptance Date: January 1, 2009
Publication Date: May 1, 2009
Citation: O'Connor, T.M., Beltran, A., Watson, K., Hughes, S., Baranowski, J., Baranowski, T., Bertran, C., Campbell, K., Canal, J., Gonzalez, D., Jago, R., Perez Lizaur, A.B., Zacarias, I. 2009. Cross-Country comparison of professionals'perceptions of the effectiveness of parenting practices to promote fruit and vegetable consumption in preschool children [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Pediatric Academic Societies. Annual Meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, May 2-5, 2009, Baltimore, Maryland. 2009 CDROM.

Technical Abstract: Obesity prevention often includes promotion of fruit and vegetable (FV) intake. Parents may be an important influence on FV intake for preschool children. Which parenting practices (PP) are effective in getting children to eat FV throughout childhood is unclear. A national variations in professionals' perceptions regarding their effectiveness is also unknown. Assess the perceptions of health and nutrition professionals from English and Spanish speaking countries regarding the effects of PP to promote FV consumption in young children. Cross-sectional convenience sample of health and nutrition professionals from 6 Spanish- and English-speaking countries. Collaborators from 5 countries (Australia, Chile, Mexico, Spain, and UK) distributed an internet survey to appropriate health and nutrition organization members. Participants assessed how effective 39 PP were in promoting preschool children to eat FV. Responses were analyzed using ANOVA, allowing for unequal variances between groups due to differing sample sizes between countries. Post hoc analyses used Dunnet's C, with p <.0017 for multiple comparisons. We had 889 participants (55% US, 22.6% Mexico, 10.9% Australia, 4.4% Spain, 3.3% Chile, 2.2% UK, 1.6% other countries) complete the survey. The majority were female (94.4%) and 94% reported experience counseling parents regarding child feeding. There was no significant difference in perceived effectiveness by country for 22 (56.4%) PP; of which 15 were perceived as effective. Seventeen PP had significant global differences with 16 having significant post-hoc pair-wise comparisons. The majority of these differences were between English- and Spanish-speaking countries, e.g. among 11 PP that differed for US and Mexican professionals, 7 exerted external parental control over the child. US professionals' mean score for these 7 PP were lower (i.e., closer to counter-productive) than Mexican professionals. Health and nutrition professionals from several countries agreed that many, but not all, FV PP were effective. Further research needs to evaluate if the country differences are due to cultural differences in parenting or in health and nutrition counseling.