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Are Family Routines Modifiable Determinants of Preschool Children’s Eating, Dietary Intake, and Growth? A Review of Intervention Studies

  • Food Acceptance and Nutrition in Infants and Young Children (H Coulthard, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

Children’s eating behaviors are critical determinants of their dietary intake and, hence, childhood growth. Nutritional interventions among families with young children are focused on parents as agents of change, with interventions increasingly targeting family routines as drivers of children’s eating and health outcomes. This review describes studies that have acted on family routines in the context of preschoolers’ eating and growth, summarizes their findings, and discusses the limitations of current approaches to studying family routines and the implications for future research.

Recent Findings

We found that food availability and parental offering of foods have been modified by several interventions and linked to positive changes in child outcomes. Parent interventions have had success in reducing controlling feeding practices and improving self-efficacy related to child feeding, but these have not been associated with long-term change in child outcomes.

Summary

We conclude that opportunities exist to strengthen the definition, operationalization, and measurement of family routine variables. Improvements in fidelity and process evaluation measures will be important for more efficacious intervention development and dissemination.

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Acknowledgments

This project is supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Grant no. 2015-68001-23240 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Childhood Obesity Prevention: Integrated Research, Education, and Extension to Prevent Childhood Obesity – A2101.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Section of Nutrition, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, 12631 E. 17th Ave, Aurora, CO, 80045, USA

    Traci A. Bekelman & Susan L. Johnson

  2. Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University, 1571 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, 80523-1571, USA

    Laura L. Bellows

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  1. Traci A. Bekelman
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  2. Laura L. Bellows
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Correspondence to Susan L. Johnson.

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Traci A. Bekelman, Laura L. Bellows, and Susan L. Johnson declare they have no conflict of interest.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Food Acceptance and Nutrition in Infants and Young Children

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Bekelman, T.A., Bellows, L.L. & Johnson, S.L. Are Family Routines Modifiable Determinants of Preschool Children’s Eating, Dietary Intake, and Growth? A Review of Intervention Studies. Curr Nutr Rep 6, 171–189 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-017-0207-9

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