Investigating offering of vegetables by caregivers of preschool age children

BACKGROUND: Research into the methods which caregivers use to encourage children to eat vegetables is limited, with minimal evidence about what the barriers are to offering these foods. Vegetable consumption in children is typically low, and so gaining information on these factors is vital in order to develop further caregiver-centred interventions to increase children's vegetable consumption. This study aimed to investigate the methods caregivers use to offer vegetables to preschool aged children, as well as the factors which influence whether and how caregivers present vegetables to their children. METHOD: Seventeen caregivers with a preschool aged child participated in focus groups to assess these questions. RESULTS: Thematic analysis indicated that caregivers use a range of methods to offer their children vegetables, with these methods falling into three broad categories: behavioural/active methods, passive methods and food manipulations. Influences on caregiver offering which emerged from the focus groups formed four categories: information, cost, parent factors and child factors. CONCLUSIONS: Together with large-scale quantitative data, this information can be used to shape future interventions aiming to increase children's vegetable intake as well as to tailor advice given to caregivers striving to achieve a healthful diet for their children.

Representational modes of thinking employed by children aged thirteen and fourteen, and their relationship to performance in standardised tests of ability, measures of creativity and personality

This thesis proposes that despite many experimental studies of thinking, and the development of models of thinking, such as Bruner's (1966) enactive, iconic and symbolic developmental modes, the imagery and inner verbal strategies used by children need further investigation to establish a coherent, theoretical basis from which to create experimental curricula for direct improvement of those strategies. Five hundred and twenty-three first, second and third year comprehensive school children were tested on 'recall' imagery, using a modified Betts Imagery Test; and a test of dual-coding processes (Paivio, 1971, p.179), by the P/W Visual/Verbal Questionnaire, measuring 'applied imagery' and inner verbalising. Three lines of investigation were pursued: 1. An investigation a. of hypothetical representational strategy differences between boys and girls; and b. the extent to which strategies change with increasing age. 2. The second and third year children's use of representational processes, were taken separately and compared with performance measures of perception, field independence, creativity, self-sufficiency and self-concept. 3. The second and third year children were categorised into four dual-coding strategy groups: a. High Visual/High Verbal b. Low Visual/High Verbal c. High Visual/Low Verbal d. Low Visual/Low Verbal These groups were compared on the same performance measures. The main result indicates that: 1. A hierarchy of dual-coding strategy use can be identified that is significantly related (.01, Binomial Test) to success or failure in the performance measures: the High Visual/High Verbal group registering the highest scores, the Low Visual/High Verbal and High Visual/Low Verbal groups registering intermediate scores, and the Low Visual/Low Verbal group registering the lowest scores on the performance measures. Subsidiary results indicate that: 2. Boys' use of visual strategies declines, and of verbal strategies increases, with age; girls' recall imagery strategy increases with age. Educational implications from the main result are discussed, the establishment of experimental curricula proposed, and further research suggested.

Inducing preschool children's emotional eating:relations with parental feeding practices

Background: Children's emotional eating is related to greater body mass index and a less-healthy diet, but little is known about the early development of this behavior. Objective: This study aimed to examine the relations between preschool children's emotional eating and parental feeding practices by using experimental manipulation of child mood and food intake in a laboratory setting. Design: Twenty-five 3–5-y-old children and their mothers sat together and ate a standard meal to satiety. Mothers completed questionnaires regarding their feeding practices. Children were assigned to a control or negative mood condition, and their consumption of snack foods in the absence of hunger was measured. Results: Children whose mothers often used food to regulate emotions ate more cookies in the absence of hunger than did children whose mothers used this feeding practice infrequently, regardless of condition. Children whose mothers often used food for emotion regulation purposes ate more chocolate in the experimental condition than in the control condition. The pattern was reversed for children of mothers who did not tend to use food for emotion regulation. There were no significant effects of maternal use of restriction, pressure to eat, and use of foods as a reward on children's snack food consumption. Conclusions: Children of mothers who use food for emotion regulation consume more sweet palatable foods in the absence of hunger than do children of mothers who use this feeding practice infrequently. Emotional overeating behavior may occur in the context of negative mood in children whose mothers use food for emotion regulation purposes. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT01122290.