Associations of Parent Feeding Practice Profiles With Feeding Styles, Child Diet Quality, and the Home Food Environment

Background

The Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ) is a validated measure of 12 aspects of parent feeding that have been associated with child dietary intake and health outcomes.

Objective

To investigate latent profiles of CFPQ subscales (ie, patterns of individual responses) and test relationships with parental feeding styles (ie, authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, uninvolved), child adherence to dietary guidelines, and the home food environment.

Study Design, Settings, Participants

Secondary analysis of data from 118 maternal-child dyads in North Carolina assessed at child ages 3 and 5 years.

Measurable Outcome/Analysis

Profiles of the 12 CFPQ subscales were examined using Latent Profile Analysis. Multinomial regression estimated associations of CFPQ latent profiles with feeding styles measured by the Caregiver Feeding Styles Questionnaire (CFSQ). Linear regression examined associations of profile membership with child Healthy Eating Index 2020 (HEI) overall and separately for adequacy (eg, fruit, vegetables, whole grains, HEI-adq) and moderation (eg, refined grains, sodium, HEI-mod) components. Associations of the Home Food Inventory obesogenic score (HFI-OB) and fruit/vegetable score (HFI-FV) with CFPQ latent profiles were estimated using ANOVA. Significance was set at p<0.05.

Results

Fit indices (BIC and ICL) supported a three-profile model: 1 high supportive and low controlling practices, 2 high controlling and high supportive practices, and 3 moderate controlling and low supportive practices. CFSQ feeding styles did not predict CFPQ latent profile membership. Total HEI, HEI-adq and HEI-mod were lower in profile 1 than profile 3 (Total HEI β=-5.85, p=0.05; HEI-adq β=-3.65, p=0.06; HEI-mod β=-2.19, p=0.11). HFI-OB was lower in profile 1 than profile 2 (mean difference= -4.85, 95%CI= -9.00 - 0.70) and profile 3 (mean difference= -4.68, 95%CI= -8.40 - -0.97). HFI-FV was higher for profile 1 than profile 3 (mean difference= 3.30, 95%CI= 0.10-6.49).

Conclusions

Profiles of parents who have high supportive and low controlling feeding practices were associated with improved diet quality and home food environment compared to parents who had high controlling and high supportive or moderate controlling and low supportive practices.

Funding

NIH