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Child food portion sizes in the home environment: how do parents decide?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2023

Lena Acolatse Open the ORCID record for Lena Acolatse [Opens in a new window] ,
L. Kirsty Pourshahidi Open the ORCID record for L. Kirsty Pourshahidi [Opens in a new window] ,
Caomhan Logue Open the ORCID record for Caomhan Logue [Opens in a new window] ,
Mary T. McCann Open the ORCID record for Mary T. McCann [Opens in a new window]  and
Maeve A. Kerr Open the ORCID record for Maeve A. Kerr [Opens in a new window]
Lena Acolatse*
Affiliation:
Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
L. Kirsty Pourshahidi
Affiliation:
Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
Caomhan Logue
Affiliation:
Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
Mary T. McCann
Affiliation:
Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
Maeve A. Kerr
Affiliation:
Nutrition Innovation Centre for Food and Health (NICHE), School of Biomedical Sciences, Ulster University, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
*
*Corresponding author: Lena Acolatse, email acolatse-l@ulster.ac.uk
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Abstract

The consumption of larger portion sizes (PS) of food has been implicated in the increased prevalence of childhood obesity. The home is usually the first place children learn about food, however, little is known about how parents determine child PS in the home environment. This narrative review aimed to explore parental beliefs, decisions, strategies and barriers to the provision of appropriate food PS for children in the home environment. Results indicate that parental decisions on child food PS are based on the amounts they serve themselves, personal intuition and knowledge of child appetite. Owing to the habitual nature of food provision, parental decisions on child PS may be taken without conscious thought and/or could be part of a complex decision-making process influenced by several interlinked factors, including parental childhood mealtime experiences, other family members and child weight status. Strategies to determine child-appropriate PS include modelling the desired PS behaviour, use of unit-based food packaging and PS estimation aids, and providing the child with a degree of autonomy to rely on their own appetite cues. A lack of knowledge/awareness of PS guidance is a key barrier identified by parents to the provision of age-appropriate PS, warranting the inclusion of salient child-appropriate PS guidance within national dietary recommendations. Further home-based interventions to improve the provision of appropriate child PS are required, leveraged on parental strategies already in use, as outlined in this review.

Keywords

Portion size decisionsFamilyChildrenHome
Type
Conference on ‘Food and nutrition: Pathways to a sustainable future’
Information
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society , Volume 82 , Issue 3 , September 2023 , pp. 386 - 393
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Nutrition Society

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