How do Indian mothers use feeding practices with children?
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JCS-02-2016-0004 |
| Pages | 283-299 |
| Published date | 19 December 2016 |
| Date | 19 December 2016 |
| Author | Jyoti Vohra,Pavleen Soni |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Vulnerable groups,Children's services,Sociology,Sociology of the family,Children/youth,Parents,Education,Early childhood education,Home culture,Social/physical development |
How do Indian mothers use feeding
practices with children?
Jyoti Vohra and Pavleen Soni
Jyoti Vohra is based at PG
Department of Commerce and
Business Administration,
Khalsa College, Amritsar, India.
Pavleen Soni is based at the
University Business School,
Guru Nanak Dev University,
Amritsar, India.
Abstract
Purpose –The undesirable effects of TV advertisements and general parenting responsibility propel mothers
to monitor and control the eating habits of children through meal time actions and feeding practices. The
purpose of this paper is to identify feeding practices used by Indian mothers through the Comprehensive
Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ) developed by Musher-Eizenman and Holub (2007) and to
investigate differences in the use of feeding practices across demographic variables.
Design/methodology/approach –Usi ng a cross-sectional design, a structured and pre-tested
questionnaire was used to collect data from 473 mothers of children aged four to 11 years from Punjab
(India). Data were analysed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and ANOVA.
Findings –The present study confirms the validity and reliability of the nine-factor model through CFA with
28 items in the Indian context than original CFPQ. Further, significant differences exist in the responses of
mothers for feeding practices followed with children across age and gender of child, mother’s education
status and monthly family income.
Practical implications –Parents may understand the nature of feeding practices to mediate unhealthy food
consumption habits of children. The government should formulate codes or regulations to sufficiently monitor
food marketing activities directed at children. The food marketing companies should also act responsibly to
protect well-being of children.
Originality/value –This piece of research is important as no such study (to the best of researchers’
knowledge) has already been conducted in India even though dietary patterns of children are transforming
tremendously.
Keywords India, Confirmatory factor analysis, Children, Mothers, CFPQ, Feeding practices
Paper type Research paper
Conceptual framework
Mothers are the primary caregivers to children who are particularly worried about the types
of foods that children consume. However, consumption habits of the majority of children are
influenced by exposure to frequent television advertisements for unhealthy foods (Coon et al.,
2001). Hence, parents try to monitor and control eating habits of children through meal
time actions and feeding practices. Meal time is the time when all family members take
meals together and share their feelings. The majority of children enjoy eating meals with
families. They also believe that they eat healthier foods when they eat dinner with families
than in any other eating situation (Neumark-Sztainer et al., 2000). Patrick and Nicklas (2005)
also reported that children who dine with families consume more fruits, vegetables, grains
and calcium-rich foods, protein, calcium, iron, folate, fibre, and vitamins A, C, E and B-6.
Moreover, parents are also interested in taking family meals together because they feel
that their own food habits and choices tend to transform the food preferences of children
(Sweetman et al., 2011).
Received 24 February 2016
Revised 4 May 2016
Accepted 7 June 2016
DOI 10.1108/JCS-02-2016-0004 VOL. 11 NO. 4 2016, pp. 283-299, © Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1746-6660
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JOURNAL OF CHILDREN'S SERVICES
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The feeding practices that parents follow with children include pressurizing children, modelling
(MOD) and creating availability of healthy foods. They also use feeding styles ranging from setting
snack limits, ensuring daily fruits and vegetables availability to using fat reduction and positive
persuasion during meals. These measures wield a lot of influence on children’s eating behaviour,
dietary preferences, food intake and subsequent weight status (Ventura and Birch, 2008; Hendy
et al., 2009). Previous research suggests that parents use multiple feeding strategies (Klesges
et al., 1983). These include physical encouragement (pats, hugs, kisses, pushes or moves,
directs physically, holds and points, models), physical discouragement (hits, restrains from
action, pushes, removes child or object), verbal encouragement (such as suggests, commands,
directs, make positive statements about foods), verbal discouragement (such as forbids, scolds,
refuses, makes negative statements about foods), presents food (feeds, places food in child’s
direction without physically encouraging food intake), offers food (ask child to eat more food)
and model eating (tell child to eat like themselves). However, they suggest that verbal
encouragements to eat are much effective than physical encouragements. Apart from this,
researchers have identified food-related parenting practices as permissive, authoritarian and
authoritative (Nicklas et al., 2001) which are reminiscent of Baumrind’s classification of general
parenting. Permissive parenting practices are described as allowing child to eat according to his/
her preference and liking. Authoritarian parenting practices refer to control of food consumption
patterns of children through commands, instructions, directives or coercion. This practice also
includes use of food to pacify or reward the child or punish or prompt the child to eat when he/she
is not hungry. The parents who use Authoritative parenting style uses questions such as ask
children about their food preferences, negotiations (convince the child to eat foods through
discussion) and reasoning to modify or control child food intake behaviour (describe the benefits
of consuming healthy and nutritious foods). Vereecken et al. (2004) elaborate food parenting
practices as permissiveness (permit intake of sweets, biscuits and soft drinks), pressure (oblige
child to eat regular meal), material reward (offer some sweet/dessert/reward for completing meal),
verbal praise (praise child if he/she finishes food), negotiation (agreement by mother on eating
small amount of food or taste the food), encouragement through rationale (describing healthy
features of fruit and vegetable consumption), discouragement through rationale (describing
ill-effects of consuming sweets and soft drinks), catering on children’s demands (consider child’s
preferences), avoiding negative MOD behaviour (restrict personal intake of sweets/soft drinks in
presence of child). Musher-Eizenman and Holub (2007) have extended the repertoire of feeding
practices to include practices such as encouraging balance and variety (by giving them healthy or
different food choices); maintaining a healthy food environment (ENV) (by making available fruits
and vegetables at home all the time); offering tasty foods such as sweets/desserts to them in
exchange of good behaviour or withholding those foods for showing bad behaviour; involving
children in planning and preparing meals and asking them to participate in grocery shopping;
keeping track of types of foods (e.g. sweets, snack foods, high-fat foods or sugary drinks)
consumed by them; pressurizing them to eat proper diet at meals; discussing with them the
importance of consuming nutritious or healthy foods. Williams et al. (2008) explored six
dimensions of parental feeding practices as –setting meal rules (taking their permission before
eating anything and not allowing their children to leave the table without eating anything), insisting
food amounts are eaten (pressurizing them to sit until food amount is eaten or ask them to clean
the plate), increasing intake with food (offering them favourite foods/desserts/sweets for eating
foods during meals), using non-food rewards (praising them or give a gift to them for eating
foods), becoming punitive (insisting them to eat a bite of new foods or try new foods or punish
child for not eating foods) and becoming permissive (allowing them to eat foods between meals/
giving them to eat other foods/encouraging them to eat fruits and vegetables daily).
Besides mothers favour various programme ideas to increase the incidence of healthy
eating in children (Fulkerson et al., 2011). These include learning feeding tips and recipes to plan
and prepare quick, healthful meals; involving children in meal planning and food preparation
activities and changing foods offered at meal (reducing high-fat, high-sugar foods and increase
the quantity of vegetables, fruits and milk). Jani (2014) found that Indian mothers use “MOD”to
promote the intake of healthy foods in children. Some mothers also hide vegetables in dishes
especially which are served to children in order to improve their diets (Pescud and
Pettigrew, 2014).
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