Associations between maternal diet, family eating habits and preschool children’s dietary patterns: insights from the UPBEAT trial

Abstract

Childhood obesity; Dietary habits; Dietary patterns

Obesidad infantil; Hábitos alimentarios; Patrones dietéticos

Obesitat infantil; Hàbits alimentaris; Patrons dietètics

Background Dietary behaviours in early life often track across the life course, influencing the development of adverse health outcomes such as obesity and cardiovascular disease. This study aimed to explore the between dietary patterns (DP) in preschool children and maternal DP and family eating habits. Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of 488 mother-child pairs from the UK pregnancy Better Eating and Activity Trial (UPBEAT) at 3-year follow-up. Previously published DP from mothers and children (derived from food-frequency questionnaires and exploratory factor analysis) were used. Mothers’ DP were “Fruits-Vegetables”, “African-Caribbean”, “Processed and Snacks”, and children’s DP were “Prudent”, “Processed-Snacking”, and “African-Caribbean”. Family meal environments were evaluated using a 5-point Likert scale. Results Linear regression models revealed that child’s prudent pattern was positively associated with maternal Fruits-Vegetables (B = 0.18 (0.08, 0.27)), Snacks patterns (B = 0.10 (0.01, 0.18)), and eating the same foods during meals (B = 0.25 (0.07, 0.43)). Child’s Processed-Snacking pattern was directly associated with maternal Processed (B = 0.22 (0.13, 0.30)) and Snacks (B = 0.27 (0.18, 0.36)) patterns, receiving food as reward (B = 0.22 (0.04, 0.39)) and watching TV during meals (B = 0.27 (0.09, 0.45)). Finally, the child African-Caribbean pattern was directly associated with that from the mother (B = 0.41 (0.33, 0.50)) and watching TV during meals (B = 0.15 (0.09, 0.30)), and inversely associated with maternal processed (B=-0.09 (-0.17, -0.02)) and snacking (B=-0.08 (-0.15, -0.04)) patterns. Conclusions Unhealthy dietary patterns in childhood are directly linked to similar maternal patterns and family meal behaviours, such as television viewing and food rewards. These findings highlight targetable behaviours for public health interventions.

UPBEAT was supported by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) project Early Nutrition (grant agreement no. 289346), and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) (UK) Programme Grants for Applied Research Programme (RP-0407-10452). Support was also provided by the Chief Scientist Office Scotland, Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, and Tommy’s Charity (Registered charity no. 1060508). LP is funded by Tommy’s Charity. PTS is partly funded by King’s Health Partners Institute of Women and Children’s Health (KHP) and ARC South London (NIHR). LP is a NIHR Senior Investigator Emeritus (NI-SI-0512-10104). KVD is funded by the MRC (grant number: MR/V005839/1). Dr. Luque receives funding from the Serra Hunter Fellowship from Generalitat de Catalunya, from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the ERA-NET Cofund action (N° 727565), European Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for a Healthy Life” (JPI HDHL, EndObesity)”. Project PCI2020-120697-2 funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/ 501100011033 and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/ PRTR.