This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of food parenting practices (FPP), including home availability of different types of foods and drinks, parental modelling of fruit intake, permissiveness and the use of food as a reward in the relationship between parental education and dietary intake in European children.

Single mediation analyses were conducted to explore whether FPP explain associations between parents’ educational level and children’s dietary intake measured by a parent-reported FFQ.

Six European countries.

Parent–child dyads (n 6705, 50·7 % girls, 88·8 % mothers) from the Feel4Diabetes-study.

Children aged 8·15 ± 0·96 years were included. Parental education was associated with children’s higher intake of water, fruits and vegetables and lower intake of sugar-rich foods and savoury snacks. All FPP explained the associations between parental education and dietary intake to a greater or lesser extent. Specifically, home availability of soft drinks explained 59·3 % of the association between parental education and sugar-rich food intake. Home availability of fruits and vegetables was the strongest mediators in the association between parental education and fruit and vegetable consumption (77·3 % and 51·5 %, respectively). Regarding savoury snacks, home availability of salty snacks and soft drinks was the strongest mediators (27·6 % and 20·8 %, respectively).

FPP mediate the associations between parental education and children’s dietary intake. This study highlights the importance of addressing FPP in future interventions targeting low-educated populations.

There is scarce research on bone health in early stages due to the difficulties in accessing to bone health assessment methods in absence of pathology conditions. Consequently, there is no much information on the determinants of bone health. The aim of this study is to elucidate the association of moderate-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and bone mineral density of children from Aragon accounting for socioeconomic, role parental modelling, dietary and sedentary behavior effects.

The longitudinal cohort ‘Growth and Feeding during Lactation and Early Childhood in Children of Aragon (CALINA in Spanish)’ included 1,629 born children from Aragon (Spain) in 2009. From those, after 7 years, 339 children (176 boys and 163 girls) were assessed. Bone mineral density (BMD) using Dual X-ray absorciometry (–DXA-), diet quality index (DQI) using a food frequency questionnaire(-FFQ-), sedentary behaviors by questionnaire, and physical activity (using accelerometry-actigraph 3GTX-) were evaluated, as well as if they were or not rapid weight gainers during the first year of life.

From the 339 children, 116 boys (66.5%) and 63 girls (38.7%) met the current MVPA recommendations of at least? 1 hour/day. Boys meeting MVPA recommendations did a mean of 84.02 minutes of MVPA per day and had a BMD of 0.60 g/cm2, while those not meeting the recommendations, did a mean of 43.91 minutes of MVPA and had a BMD of 0.59 g/cm2. Girls meeting MVPA recommendation did 75.52 minutes and had a BMD of 0.59 g/cm2, and those not meeting, did 42.81 minutes of MVPA and had a BMD of 0.58. Models, include BMI z-score (age/sex adjusted based in Anthro standards from WHO), weekly sedentary time, DQI, BMI of the mother and whether or not they had been rapid weight gainers from 0–12months as confounders and were performed for BMD having MVPA as a predictor. A significant association was found only for boys between MVPA and BMD (β = 0.145, p-value = 0.02) while no association was found for girls (β = 0.06, p-value = 0.40).

There is still an important physical activity gap between boys and girls. In boys, physical activity is positively associated with BMD, whereas in girls, no significant associations seem to exist. More research is required to elucidated the effects of lifestyle behaviors on bone health in children.

The study included a cohort of 381 children (40.7 % boys) aged 7 years, from the Growth and Feeding during Infancy and Early Childhood in Aragon (CALINA) longitudinal study, living in Zaragoza. Data on dietary habits and screen time (watching TV/DVD/videos and playing PC/video games) were parental-reported. ST was categorized based on the recommendations (≤ 2hour/day and > 2hour/day). The DQI was computed from a validated semi quantitative food-frequency questionnaire. Generalized linear mixed models, adjusted for maternal education and body mass index, were analysed.

In boys, exceeding the total ST's recommendations (> 2 h/day) was positively associated with high consumption of soft drinks (β = 0.13; CI: 0.02;0.26) while in girls, exceeding the recommendations was positively associated with light drinks (soft drinks with artificial sweeteners) consumption (β = 0.06; CI: 0.02;0.13). Only individual PC/videogames time was associated with beverage consumption. In both gender, excessive PC/video games time (> 2h/day) was associated with high soft drinks consumption (β = 0.51; CI: 0.25; 0.77, β = 1.07; CI: 0.79; 1.35, respectively). Only in girls, there was a positive association between PC/ video games time and light drinks (soft drinks with artificial sweeteners) consumption (β = 0.21; CI: 0.02; 0.41). Regarding the DQI, only boys showed a negative associations between total ST and the DQI (β = -5.91; CI -2.56; -2.56), this means, that those boys that exceeded the total ST's recommendations (> 2 h/day) had a poor total quality diet.

In children, ST was associated with beverages (soft drinks and light drinks) consumption and a poor total diet quality. Soft drinks with artificial sweeteners (light drinks) were chosen mostly by girl´s, whereas, boys preferred regular sugar sweetened soft drinks consumption.

Introduction: Childhood obesity is rising in all countries. Dietary habits are modifiable factors which develop early in life. During growth, several factors, such as peer- influence and food availability, determine the development of food preferences and eating behaviour. Parents play also a key role model by influencing their own food intake.

Objetives: The purpose of this study was to assess the influence of parental role modelling, as predictor of fruits and vegetables intake in European pre-schoolers.

Methods: The present study included a sample of 6633 preschool children (51.9% boys) from six European centres (Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Poland and Spain), 3.5 to 5.5 years of age, participating in the ToyBox-study. Data on parental role modelling related with their own fruits and vegetables intake (portions/day) and children's fruits and vegetables intake (portions/day) were collected via standardized proxy-administered questionnaires. Linear regression model was used to assess this association. The adjusted model included socioeconomic status and weight status.

Results: In the unadjusted model, boys whose parents consumed fruits, showed a mean intake of 0.09 (95% CI: 0.08–0.11; p ≤ 0.001) portions of fruits more than the boys whose parents did not consume fruits. Also, girls whose parents consumed fruits, had intake of 0.10 (95% CI: 0.08–0.12; p ≤ 0.001) portions of fruits more than the girls whose parents did not consume fruits.

Moreover, boys whose parents consumed vegetables, showed a mean intake of 0.09 (95% CI: 0.07–0.11; p ≤ 0.001) portions of vegetables more than the boys whose parents did not consume vegetables. Also, girls whose parents consumed fruits, had intake of 0.11 (95% CI: 0.09–0.13; p ≤ 0.001) portions of vegetables more than the girls whose parents did not consume vegetables.

Finally, parental role related with fruits consumption explained 19.3% of fruits intake in European pre-schoolers and the 17.8% of vegetables intake in boys and 21.9% of vegetable intake in girls taking into consideration the potential effect of socioeconomic status of the family and the weight status of the children.

Conclusions: Parental role model of fruit intake has moderate effect on the pre-schooler's dietary intake. However, home environment characteristics such as family rules or availability and accessibility of foods should be considered as potential factors related to food intake in pre-schoolers.

Introduction: Dietary habits are established from a very young age. Parental role modeling is an important factor influencing the eating behavior of their children. Drinking behavior may have an impact in the development of childhood obesity. This study aimed to explore the correlations of core drinking beverages between parents and their children.

Materials and Methods: The present study included children of 3.5–5.5 years and their parents from the (Multifactorial evidence-based approach using behavioral models in understanding and promoting fun, healthy food, play and policy for the prevention of obesity in early childhood) ToyBox study. The study was a kindergarten-based family-involved intervention, in preschool children from six European countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Poland, and Spain. For this study, we analyzed data from the baseline cross-sectional survey.

Data on consumption frequency of water, homemade or fresh fruit juice, prepacked fruit juice, light beverages and sugared sweetened beverages consumption from parents and their children was obtained via a validated food frequency questionnaire. Parents were given examples of serving sizes and asked about how to self-report their usual consumption per day or week. Beverage consumption of children was reported by their parents and information about frequency and portion sizes was collected. Body weight and height of children was measured and classified according to the International Obesity Task Force (IOTF). Bivariate correlations were performed to analyze beverage consumption (servings per day) in children and their parents.

Results: The studied sample included 5266 pairs of children (49.2% girls) and parents (91.7% women) that were included in the analysis.

Girls presented higher correlations in water (r2 = 0,317) and sugar sweetened beverages (r2 = 0,302), whereas boys, presented slightly higher correlations of light soft drinks (r2 = 0,273), pure fruit juices (r2 = 0,308) and prepacked fruit juices (r2 = 0,324), all of them at < 0.01 level of significance. Considering boys and girls together, a slightly higher significant correlation coefficients were found between children-parents’ dyads with overweight/obesity compared to normal weight children-parentś for sugar sweetened beverages (r2 = 0,303) and light soft drinks (r2 = 0,396).

Discussion: Beverage consumption of children and their parents were found to be moderately correlated. Overweight children seem to have better correlations with their parents in relation of sugar sweetened beverages and light soft drinks. Parents should encourage a healthy beverage consumption for their own health and most important, because there are key role models to their children.

To provide the evidence base for targeted nutrition policies to reduce the risk of micronutrient/diet-related diseases among disadvantaged populations in Europe, by focusing on: folate, vitamin B12, Fe, Zn and iodine for intake and status; and vitamin C, vitamin D, Ca, Se and Cu for intake.

MEDLINE and Embase databases were searched to collect original studies that: (i) were published from 1990 to 2011; (ii) involved >100 subjects; (iii) had assessed dietary intake at the individual level; and/or (iv) included best practice biomarkers reflecting micronutrient status. We estimated relative differences in mean micronutrient intake and/or status between the lowest and highest socio-economic groups to: (i) evaluate variation in intake and status between socio-economic groups; and (ii) report on data availability.

Europe.

Children, adults and elderly.

Data from eighteen publications originating primarily from Western Europe showed that there is a positive association between indicators of socio-economic status and micronutrient intake and/or status. The largest differences were observed for intake of vitamin C in eleven out of twelve studies (5–47 %) and for vitamin D in total of four studies (4–31 %).

The positive association observed between micronutrient intake and socio-economic status should complement existing evidence on socio-economic inequalities in diet-related diseases among disadvantaged populations in Europe. These findings could provide clues for further research and have implications for public health policy aimed at improving the intake of micronutrients and diet-related diseases.

To review evidence on the associations between vitamin B12 intake and its biomarkers, vitamin B12 intake and its functional health outcomes, and vitamin B12 biomarkers and functional health outcomes.

A systematic review was conducted by searching electronic databases, until January 2012, using a standardized strategy developed in the EURRECA network. Relevant articles were screened and sorted based on title and abstract, then based on full text, and finally included if they met inclusion criteria. A total of sixteen articles were included in the review.

Articles covered four continents: America (n 4), Europe (n 8), Africa (n 1) and Asia (n 3).

Population groups included healthy infants, children and adolescents, and pregnant and lactating women.

From the total number of 5815 papers retrieved from the initial search, only sixteen were eligible according to the inclusion criteria: five for infants, five for children and adolescents, and six for pregnant and lactating women.

Only one main conclusion could be extracted from this scarce number of references: a positive association between vitamin B12 intake and serum vitamin B12 in the infant group. Other associations were not reported in the eligible papers or the results were not provided in a consistent manner. The low number of papers that could be included in our systematic review is probably due to the attention that is currently given to research on vitamin B12 in elderly people. Our observations in the current systematic review justify the idea of performing well-designed studies on vitamin B12 in young populations.