Parents\u27 food choice motives and their associations with children\u27s food preferences

Objective The objective was to investigate parents\u27 motives for selecting foods for their children and the associations between these motives and children\u27s food preferences. Design Cross-sectional survey. A modified version of the Food Choice Questionnaire was used to assess parents\u27 food choice motives. Parents also reported children\u27s liking/disliking of 176 food and beverage items on 5-point Likert scales. Patterns of food choice motives were examined with exploratory principal component analysis. Associations between motives and children\u27s food preferences were assessed with linear regression while one-way and two-way ANOVA were used to test for sociodemographic differences. Setting Two Australian cities. Subjects Parents (n 371) of 2-5-year-old children. Results Health, nutrition and taste were key motivators for parents, whereas price, political concerns and advertising were among the motives considered least important. The more parents\u27 food choice for their children was driven by what their children wanted, the less children liked vegetables (β =-0·27, P<0·01), fruit (β=-0·19, P<0·01) and cereals (β=-0·28, P<0·01) and the higher the number of untried foods (r=0·17, P<0·01). The reverse was found for parents\u27 focus on natural/ethical motives (vegetables β=0·17, P<0·01; fruit β=0·17, P<0·01; cereals β=0·14, P=0·01). Health and nutrition motives bordered on statistical significance as predictors of children\u27s fruit and vegetable preferences. Conclusions Although parents appear well intentioned in their motives for selecting children\u27s foods, there are gaps to be addressed in the nature of such motives (e.g. selecting foods in line with the child\u27s desires) or the translation of health motives into healthy food choices