Dietary Patterns of European Children and Their  Parents in Association with Family Food  Environment: Results from the I.Family Study

• Published in: Nutrients 2017-02, Vol.9 (2), p.126
• Main Authors: Hebestreit, Antje, Intemann, Timm, Siani, Alfonso, De Henauw, Stefaan, Eiben, Gabriele, Kourides, Yiannis A, Kovacs, Eva, Moreno, Luis A, Veidebaum, Toomas, Krogh, Vittorio, Pala, Valeria, Bogl, Leonie H, Hunsberger, Monica, Börnhorst, Claudia, Pigeot, Iris
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adolescent; adolescents; Adult; Animal products; Availability; Beverages; bmi z-score; body-mass index; breakfast consumption; Carbonated Beverages; Cereals; Child; childhood obesity; Children; Cluster Analysis; consumption; Cross-Sectional Studies; Diet; diet recall; Dietary Fats - administration & dosage; Dietary intake; eating habits; Educational Status; Energy consumption; energy intake; episodically consumed foods; Europe; European Continental Ancestry Group; Families & family life; family resemblance; Fathers; Feeding Behavior; Female; Folkhälsovetenskap, global hälsa och socialmedicin; Food; food consumption; food intake; frequencies; fruit; grains; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Healthy Diet; Humans; idefics; Logistic Models; Male; Meals; Mental Recall; Middle Aged; Mothers; Nutrition & Dietetics; Nutrition and Dietetics; Nutritive Sweeteners - administration & dosage; Näringslära och dietkunskap; Parent-Child Relations; parental role; Parents; Public Health, Global Health and Social Medicine; Regression analysis; shared meals; soft drink; Soft drinks; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 2072-6643; 2072-6643
• DOI: 10.3390/nu9020126

The aim of this study was to determine whether an association exists between children's  and  parental  dietary  patterns  (DP),  and  whether  the  number  of  shared  meals  or  soft  drink  availability  during  meals  strengthens  this  association.  In  2013/2014  the  I.Family  study  cross-sectionally assessed the dietary intakes of families from eight European countries using 24-h  dietary recalls. Usual energy and food intakes from six- to 16-year-old children and their parents  were estimated based on the NCI Method. A total of 1662 child-mother and 789 child-father dyads  were included; DP were derived using cluster analysis. We investigated the association between  children's and parental DP and whether the number of shared meals or soft drink availability  moderated this association using mixed effects logistic regression models. Three DP comparable in  children and parents were obtained: Sweet & Fat, Refined Cereals, and Animal Products. Children  were more likely to be allocated to the Sweet & Fat DP when their fathers were allocated to the  Sweet & Fat DP and when they shared at least one meal per day (OR 3.18; 95% CI 1.84; 5.47). Being  allocated to the Sweet & Fat DP increased when the mother or the father was allocated to the Sweet  & Fat DP and when soft drinks were available (OR 2.78; 95% CI 1.80; 4.28 or OR 4.26; 95% CI 2.16;  8.41, respectively). Availability of soft drinks and negative parental role modeling are important  predictors of children's dietary patterns.