Association between Social and Demographic Factors with Feeding Methods in 3-6-Years-Old Children

Healthy Nutrition has an important role in childhood. Food habits of a child probably will continue to adulthood and increase the risk of many chronic diseases. Role of parents in child nutrition as a food producer and eating pattern has recognized to most important factor of child nutrition. Recent studies have shown that the methods used by parents to child feeding have an important role in the child’s diet and BMI. This paper aimed to investigate which parents use which types of parenting control practices to manage their children’s nutrition. A cross-sectional survey of 208 parents with children aged 3-6 years was carried out in 30 primary schools. Measures included demographic and social factors and aspects of child feeding practices. Results showed that stay at home mothers used more modeling practices. Mothers of sons used more pressure to eat than others. Older mothers used less pressure to eat. Mothers with higher BMI used more emotion regulation strategy and less modeling. And mothers with more education used more modeling. The results showed a significant relationship between demographic and social factors with aspects of the feeding practices.