Consistency Between Parent-Reported Feeding Practices and Behavioral Observation During Toddler Meals

Area of Science:

• Child Nutrition and Development
• Parenting and Family Studies
• Behavioral Science

Background:

• Accurate assessment of parental feeding behaviors is crucial for understanding child eating habits.
• Questionnaires are commonly used to gather self-reported data on feeding practices.
• Understanding the concordance between self-reports and observed behaviors is essential for data validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the extent to which parents' questionnaire responses align with their observed mealtime behaviors with toddlers.
• To determine the reliability of self-reported feeding practices in a real-world setting.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 75 parents of toddlers (mean age 24.7 months) in the US.
• Collected data through feeding behavior questionnaires and video recordings of children's dinner meals.
• Analyzed the consistency between parent responses (never, sometimes, always) and observed behaviors.

Main Results:

• Parents' self-reports showed high agreement (≥70%) with observed behaviors for 6 practices, including screen time and prompting to eat.
• For many behaviors, observed frequencies were similar across all response groups (never, sometimes, always).
• Observed behavior frequencies aligned with expected directions (always > sometimes > never) for only 5 practices.

Conclusions:

• Self-reported feeding behaviors partially predict observed actions, but consistency varies.
• The interpretation of
• sometimes
• responses is challenging due to potential inconsistency and social desirability bias.
• Further research is needed to enhance the utility of "sometimes" self-reports in predicting actual feeding behaviors.