Abstract
There is a strong societal belief that parents are role models for children’s dietary behaviors in early life that may persist throughout the life course. However, the association of dietary intake between parents and offspring has shown inconclusive findings. We did a systematic review, meta-analysis, and meta-regression to explore the resemblance between parent-child dietary intakes including nutrient intakes, food groups, and whole diet. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and CINAHL on the parent-child dietary resemblance between January 1980 and December 2019. We performed quality effect meta-analysis on reported correlation coefficients (r) and did meta-regression analysis to explain the resemblance and potential moderators. Heterogeneity and inconsistency were examined using the Q and I2 statistics. A total of 51 studies met the inclusion criteria for systematic review, whilst 42 studies were included in the meta-analysis. Pooled analyses showed weak to moderate parent-child dietary intake associations for different aspects of diet including energy, fat (% energy), protein (% energy), carbohydrate (% energy), fruits and vegetable (g/d), confectionery food (g/d), and whole diet. A substantial variation was observed in associations across dietary intake variables by different study characteristics, including population, study year, dietary assessment method, the person reporting dietary intake, quality of the study, and study design. Implication: The resemblance is weak to moderate in most aspects of dietary intakes among parent-child pairs. These findings challenge the social myth that parental practices of dietary habits profoundly shape children’s dietary intake.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
PARENTS, OFFSPRING, DIETARY BEHAVIOUR, DIET, RESEMBLANCE, WHOLE DIET
