(P28-001-23) Do Children and Parents Eat the Same? A Secondary Analysis of National Survey Data

Objectives: In England, 27.7% of children aged 4 to 5 years and 40.9% of children aged 10 to 11 years are overweight or living with obesity. Parents play a key part in shaping children's eating behaviours by acting as role models and food providers and regulators. The objective of this study was to explore the resemblance of dietary intake between children (aged 4-11 years) and their parents, with the aim of informing health interventions for policymakers.

Methods: This is a secondary analysis of data from the UK’s National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS), a rolling program collecting dietary information from 1,000 adults and children through a 4-day diet diary analysis. The results are used by governmental agencies to monitor the population’s dietary intake and produce recommendations and policies. The last five NDNS datasets (year 7 [2014/15] to year 11 [2018/19]) were combined (n=6,281 adults and children). Data for children (aged 4-11 years) and their parents living in the same household were then matched to create a dyadic dataset (n=421 dyads). The relationship between children and their parents’ energy-adjusted dietary intake for the main food groups (e.g., cereal and cereal products, savoury snacks and non-alcoholic beverages) and nutrients was assessed using Pearson’s correlation coefficients.

Results: Overall, significant correlations (p < 0.05) were found for all examined food groups and nutrients, with an exception for vitamin B₆. For the whole sample of dyads, the strongest correlations were found for total meat intake (r=0.47, n=421, p  < 0.001). In considering energy-adjusted total fruit and vegetable intake, mother-child dyads had a slightly stronger resemblance (i.e., higher correlation coefficients) (r=0.42, n=278, p  < 0.001) compared to father-child dyads (r=0.27, n=143, p =0.001). For free sugars intake, a moderate positive correlation was found for father-child dyads (r=0.41, p  < 0.001), however, no correlation was found for mother-child dyads (r=0.06, p= 0.354). 

Conclusions: The parent-child dietary resemblance was found to be moderate to weak and varied across food groups and nutrients and the types of parent-child dyads. Further research to examine dietary resemblance could consider other factors that may influence a child’s dietary intake, such as school food environments.

Funding Sources: King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia