Parental communication and children's food choices : understanding the theoretical processes and conditions of effect

• Main Author: Yee, Andrew Zi Han
• Other Authors: May Oo Lwin
• Format: Theses and Dissertations
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Communication
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/105519; http://hdl.handle.net/10220/47834
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Parents play important roles in helping children develop healthier eating habits. Despite this, research on parenting in the area of child food consumption have often neglected the study of the communicative actions of parents, and the processes and emotional conditions in which they influence the food preferences of children and adolescents. This collection of four studies aims to disentangle the complexities surrounding parental communication and its effects on child food consumption in the contexts of fruits, vegetables, and sugar-sweetened beverage consumption (SSB). Study One – a systematic review and meta-analysis – provided a comprehensive understanding of the state of research about the role that parents play in shaping children’s food consumption. The study found that parents play the roles of gatekeepers, role models, and health communicators, when it comes to children’s food consumption. Most importantly, the study identified two main research gaps; one, that there are multiple imprecise and overlapping parental communication concepts, and two, that there is a lack of research in understanding the processes and conditions in which parental communication affects child food consumption. Studies Two and Three aimed to fill these research gaps. Specifically, Study Two (n = 246), a scale development study, found that the perceived communicative actions of parents can be delineated into four different strategies – active guidance, general discussion, preventive restrictive guidance, and promotive restrictive guidance. A confirmatory factor analysis with a nationally representative sample 1,113 of children and adolescents found that this four-factor structure was robust. The study demonstrated that active communication about food often reflect an evaluative slant, and that rule-based communication about food can be highly context-dependent. Next, Study Three (A) tested a behavior change model integrating the aforementioned parental communication strategies with the theory of planned behavior in the context of fruits, vegetables, and SSB consumption. Active guidance was found to be a related to attitude, perceived norms, and perceived behavioral control towards consuming fruits and vegetables. Promotive restrictive guidance was positively related to attitude and perceived norms towards consuming fruits and vegetables. Additionally, it was also positively associated with perceived behavioral control towards consuming vegetables. Meanwhile, active guidance was negatively correlated with attitude towards consuming SSB. Preventive restrictive guidance was negatively correlated with attitude, perceived norms, and perceived behavioral control towards consuming SSB. The study demonstrated that active guidance is more effective in promotive contexts, while rule-based communication needs to be directed towards a specific behavioral context to be effective. Finally, Study Three (B) examined the contextual model of parenting style, and found that authoritative parenting moderated the effects of parental active, promotive restrictive, and preventive restrictive guidance on all three proximal predictors of behavior. The study demonstrated that the perceived emotional climate between parents and children can greatly affect the efficacy of communication strategies to encourage a healthier diet. Overall, this thesis has substantially contributed to the literature on parenting practices and child food consumption, and elucidated the processes and conditions in which parental communication can influence changes in children’s food consumption.