Portion sizes for children are predicted by parental characteristics and the amounts parents serve themselves

Abstract

Background: Children's energy intakes are influenced by the portions they are served. Factors influencing the amounts adults offer children are not well described.

Objective: We assessed whether the amounts that were served to and consumed by children at meals were related to amounts that parents served themselves.

Design: In this repeated-measures, cross-sectional observational study, 145 parents and their preschoolers (82 Hispanic, 57 African American, 6 unidentified) were recruited from Head Start settings in Houston, TX. The amounts served to and consumed by children and parents during 3 at-home evening meals were measured and analyzed. We assessed children's and parents' heights and weights, and body mass indexes (BMIs) were calculated. Associations between portions served for parents and children and between amounts served to and consumed by children were evaluated. Multiple linear regression was used to determine whether maternal characteristics (race-ethnicity, sociodemographic factors, and caregivers' BMIs) predicted the amounts caregivers served to children.

Results: The amounts that parents served themselves were significantly associated with the amounts that they served to their children (r = 0.51, P < 0.0001). Multiple regression analysis showed that African American parents (compared with Hispanics) served more food to themselves and to their children (P < 0.01, R² = 6.9%) and that employed (compared with unemployed) parents served more food to their children (P = 0.025, R² = 3.3%). The amounts served to children were strongly associated with the amounts children consumed (r = 0.88, P < 0.0001). When parents served more to themselves, they also served more to their children (P < 0.001).

Conclusions: These findings underscore the strong relation between portions offered by caregivers and the amounts children consume at a meal and suggest that factors unrelated to the child (such as the amount a parent serves himself or herself) are important predictors of children's consumption. Efforts aimed at improving parents' recognition of developmentally appropriate portions for young children could be useful for future obesity-prevention efforts.

FIGURE 1.

Spearman correlations between cross-meal differences of the amount that the parents served themselves and the amount served to the children by the parent from the 3 pairwise differences of the meals. A: Meal 2 compared with meal 1 (n = 67). B: Meal 3 compared with meal 2 (n = 64). C: Meal 1 compared with meal 3 (n = 62). Sample sizes differ across comparisons because the parents, although they were present and served their children, may have elected not to eat at any of the 3 meals with their children.