Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/2440/60972
Citations
Scopus Web of Science® Altmetric
?
?
Type: Journal article
Title: Understanding parent concerns about children's diet, activity and weight status: an important step towards effective obesity prevention interventions
Author: Slater, A.
Bowen, J.
Corsini, N.
Gardner, C.
Golley, R.
Noakes, M.
Citation: Public Health Nutrition, 2010; 13(8):1221-1228
Publisher: C A B I Publishing
Issue Date: 2010
ISSN: 1368-9800
1475-2727
Statement of
Responsibility: 
Amy Slater, Jane Bowen, Nadia Corsini, Claire Gardner, Rebecca Golley and Manny Noakes
Abstract: Objective: To identify parents’ concerns and attitudes towards children’s diets, activity habits and weight status. Design: Computer-assisted telephone interviewing administration of a 37-item survey. Data were weighted for parental education level. Descriptive results are presented, and comparisons are made by the age, gender and parental characteristics of the child. Setting: Online research panel of Australian parents. Subjects: A total of 1202 randomly selected parents of children aged 2–16 years, broadly representative of the Australian population. Results: Parents were concerned about their child’s education (reported by 35% of respondents), child’s health and well-being (25%), and violence, drugs and alcohol (20%). Concern about nutrition was indicated by 14% of respondents and concern about fitness/exercise was indicated by 3% of the sample. Factors perceived as making a healthy diet difficult to achieve for their child were child resistance (89%), the availability of healthy food (72%), a busy lifestyle (67%) and the influence of food advertising (63%). Ninety-two per cent of parents thought that it was realistic for their child to be active for at least 1 h/d, with 75% of parents feeling that it was realistic for their child to have less than 2 h recreational screen time per d. Despite this, common barriers to achieving the activity guidelines were lack of time, weather and keeping children occupied. Conclusions: Insights into parental concerns from the current study may be useful in guiding development of interventions to improve children’s nutrition and physical activity habits by framing messages in a way that are most likely to resonate with parents.
Keywords: Child
Obesity prevention
Parental views
Intervention development
Rights: © The Authors 2009
DOI: 10.1017/S1368980009992096
Grant ID: http://purl.org/au-research/grants/nhmrc/478115
Published version: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1368980009992096
Appears in Collections:Aurora harvest
Obstetrics and Gynaecology publications

Files in This Item:
There are no files associated with this item.


Items in DSpace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.