Parental attitudes, beliefs and nutrition knowledge as predictors of 5-6 year-old children's healthy food knowledge

Objective: Young children's knowledge about healthy food may influence the formation of their eating behaviours, and parents have a major influence on the development of children's knowledge in the early years. Design: We investigated the extent to which parental nutrition knowledge and attitudes around food predicted young children's knowledge of healthy foods, controlling for other influences such as socioeconomic status (SES) and parent education levels in a cross-sectional research design. Children were given a healthy food knowledge activity and parents completed questionnaires. Setting: Twenty primary schools in Adelaide, Australia, stratified by SES. Subjects: We recruited 192 five-six year old children and their parents. Results: Structural equation modelling showed that parent nutrition knowledge predicted children's nutrition knowledge (r=.30, P