New Study Highlights Need to Develop Assessments on the Family Food Environment
A new study lead by Augusto César Ferreira De Moraes, PhD, assistant professor in Epidemiology, examined the reliability and validity of questionnaires assessing family food environments in adolescents and children.
The findings, published today in Nutrition Reviews, provided insights into the need for tailored measurement tools analyzing home settings on dietary behaviors in pediatric populations worldwide.
Family food environments, a term referring to how food choices are influenced by sociocultural, built and natural, and political and economic factors, may promote or hinder the development of healthy eating behaviors. Approximately 65-72% of daily calories are consumed at home, relaying the importance of the family food environment.
This study examined different measuring tools to understand how a child's home life affects their eating habits. Researchers examined questionnaires that highlighted key factors such as:
- Types of food availability at home
- Frequency of meals eaten with family
- Parental or familial involvement in meal planning and preparation
Examples of such assessments include the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire, Parent Mealtime Action Scale, and Home Food Environment Survey. Many of these questionnaires were found to be reliable, meaning they consistently produced similar results. However, they often lack complex influences, such as cultural traditions and economic constraints on dietary habits which are key elements that contribute to overall health outcomes.
"A surprising insight was the dominance of studies from the United States that assessed family food environments using validated instruments, compared to other countries," said De Moraes. Researchers found most studies were conducted in the U.S., highlighting the need for further studies in other countries to understand eating habits influenced by different factors that may not appear in U.S. studies. "We need more research in other countries to understand how these factors affect children's eating habits in different cultures and communities worldwide."
This study shows that researchers must examine the impact of family food environments worldwide to understand how a child's home life influences their eating habits in childhood and into adulthood. Findings will aid public health and dietary experts in comparing factors contributing to family food environments, and how to tailor specific recommendations for clinicians, community health workers, and educators.
This published work highlights the need for researchers to consider further the development of tools and instruments used in conducting food-related studies. Thorough considerations such as food environments are critical when designing effective interventions to promote healthy eating habits and reduce obesity and other diet-related conditions among children and adolescents before they become non-communicable chronic health issues.
Additional authors on the study included Letícia Gabrielle Souza, MSc, and Keisyanne Araújo-Moura, PhD, with the School of Public Health, University of São Paulo.