Table 4 Food parenting practices specific to child snacking and their operational definitions

AUTONOMY SUPPORT

47

126

Praise/encouragement of healthy snacks

Uses verbal praise and encouragement to reinforce healthy snacking behaviors.

5

5

Child-centered provision of snacks

Responsive to the child’s hunger when making decisions about the child’s snacking needs including food preferences and amount consumed. Prompts child to assess hunger/fullness cues.

22

39

Reasoning and support for healthy snacks

Provides physical assistance, explanations, and reasoning to facilitate child learning and/or independence around snacking.

46

108

Role modeling healthy snacking

Intentionally uses own healthy snacking behaviors/choices as a guide for the child.

17

17

STRUCTURE

54

280

Snack planning and routines

Plans snack foods and timing which results in a consistency and predictability in the context of snacking.

49

168

Availability of healthy snacks

Ensures child receives healthy snacks by keeping healthy foods in the home and making them available at snack time. Also includes limiting availability of unhealthy snacks by keeping them out of the home and limiting impulse snack purchases while out with child.

32

69

Accessibility of healthy snacks

Facilitates child’s access to and consumption of healthy snacks through physical availability (e.g. keeping healthy foods in places child can see and easily access) and appealing preparation (e.g. using prepackaged healthy foods, tasty dips for fruit or vegetables).

27

50

Moderate snack rules and limits

Setting reasonable or moderate limits around what, when, how much of snacks are offered to children through guided choices, reasonable rules, or modifications to a child’s requests or preferences. Examples include not allowing snacks too close to dinner (reasonable rule) and offering water instead of soda, or 2 cookies instead of 5 as requested by the child (modifications to child requests).

19

40

Monitoring and awareness of snacks

Keeps track of child’s snack intake in a developmentally appropriate manner by keeping track of the timing, portion size, and type of snacks consumed.

22

40

Parenting dimensions and snacking-related food parenting practice

Operational Definition

# of caregivers¹

# of references¹

COERCIVE CONTROL

54

278

Snacks to reward behavior

Provides snacks to reward the child for desired behaviors (e.g., eats their dinner, follows directions/routine, good behavior or grades in school).

37

131

Snacks to manage child behavior

Reactive strategies whereby parent provides a snack to interrupt a negative behavior (e.g., nagging) or to pre-empt the escalation of the behavior (e.g. tantrum).

26

63

Snacks to occupy child

Proactive strategies or actions in which snacks are used to keep the child quiet or to distract or otherwise occupy the child in contexts where disruptive behavior is not acceptable (e.g. car, church, when parent is occupied).

19

40

Unilateral decision making about snacks

Decides in a unilateral manner if, when, and how much their child may have for a snack without regard for their child’s preferences or previous intake in a given day. Child is told to accept what parent offers or have nothing at all.

17

34

Excessive monitoring of snacks

Goes to great lengths to monitor everything the child eats for a snack in order to control consumption (type, portion size, and timing). Concern and awareness of child’s snack is expressed to the child and other caregivers. This does not include developmentally appropriate surveillance of child’s snacks expected for the age of the child (see “Monitoring and awareness of snacks”).

4

6

Restriction of snacks

Utilizes rigid emotional and physical strategies to limit child’s access to and intake of unhealthy foods. These strategies may include emotional coercion (e.g. threatening sickness or punishment for eating candy), excessive rule setting (e.g. child is never allowed to consume candy), or overt punishment for consuming a prohibited food. Physical strategies include keeping foods present, but out of the child’s reach (e.g. using locks to restrict child access to snack cabinet), and physically taking snacks away from the child.

19

28

Pressure to eat snacks

Encourages child to increase intake of a particular snack using strategies that disregard the child’s preferences or requests through verbal prompts (e.g. pleading), sitting and watching child (e.g. observing every bite), or threatening punishment if food is not eaten.

11

19

Parenting dimensions and snacking-related food parenting practice

Operational Definition

# of caregivers¹

# of references¹

PERMISSIVENESS

37

115

No snack rules or limits

Places few to no limits on what, when and how much of a snack a child consumes. Unhealthy snacks may be readily available to child without limits. Parent may still have awareness of what snacks child is eating (see “No involvement” below), but not feel they have control over child’s choices.

24

41

No involvement with child snacks

Lacks awareness of child’s daily snack consumption and is uninvolved with the child’s regulation of intake. This construct is distinct from “No rules about snacks” in that parents are completely disengaged from what child is eating.

15

31

Context-driven provision of snacks

Allows child’s snack consumption to be influenced by external pressures related to the social environment (e.g. pressure from grandparent) or context of eating occasion (e.g. always gets an ice cream if the truck drives by). Parent does not act as a buffer between the child and the social environment.

19

26

Emotion-based feeding of snacks

Uses snacks to show the child they love him/her or to make the child happy.

17

31