Child-reported family and peer influences on fruit, juice and vegetable consumption: reliability and validity of measures

Family, peers and other environmental factors are likely to influence children's dietary behavior but few measures of these phenomena exist. Questionnaires to measure family and peer influences on children's fruit, juice and vegetable (FJV) consumption were developed and pilot tested with an ethnically diverse group of Grade 4-6 children. Principal components analyses revealed subscales with acceptable internal consistencies that measured parent and peer FJV modeling, normative beliefs, normative expectations, perceived peer FJV norms, supportive and permissive parenting practices, food rules, permissive eating, and child food preparation. Internal consistencies were adequate to high, but test-re-test correlations often were low. Children also completed questionnaires on FJV availability and accessibility in the home, and food records for 2 days in the classroom. Parental modeling, peer normative beliefs and FV availability were significantly correlated with FJV consumption. Further research with these scales is warranted.

Socioenvironmental influences on children's fruit, juice and vegetable consumption as reported by parents: reliability and validity of measures

OBJECTIVE

To pilot test theory-based questionnaires to measure socioenvironmental influences on children's fruit, juice and vegetable (FJV) consumption as reported by parents.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional.

SETTING

Parents of fourth to sixth grade students completed socioenvironmental questionnaires. The students completed food records (FRs) for 2 days in the classroom.

SUBJECTS

Interviews were completed by 109 parents (17% African-American, 32% Hispanic-American and 51 Euro-American).

RESULTS

Student mean daily FJV intake was 2.1 servings. Principal components analyses revealed subscales measuring positive and negative parenting practices; self-efficacy for modelling and planning/encouraging FJV consumption, and making FJV available; encouraging, consequences and discouraging food socialization practices; negative home, cost and canned/frozen food barriers; meal planning; child shopping; mother food preparation; and child lunch and dinner FJV preparation practices. Internal consistencies were adequate to high. Negative parent practices and negative home FJV barriers were significantly negatively correlated with child FJV consumption variables. Planning/encouraging self-efficacy was positively associated with fruit consumption, and child dinner FJV preparation was significantly negatively correlated with child juice consumption.

CONCLUSIONS

These questionnaires may provide important insights about the relationship between parent-reported socioenvironmental influences and children's FJV consumption. Future work should test these questionnaires with larger groups of parents and youths, with more reliable estimates of usual FJV intake, e.g. 7-day food records, to obtain a detailed understanding of how parents influence what children eat. Tests of models of relationships among these variables are warranted, but should control for possible confounding variables, e.g. socioeconomic status, gender of the child, etc.