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Children
Special Issues
Factors Impacting Dietary Patterns in Infancy and Early Childhood
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Factors Impacting Dietary Patterns in Infancy and Early Childhood

A special issue of Children (ISSN 2227-9067). This special issue belongs to the section "Global and Public Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 December 2021) | Viewed by 4851

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. John Kearney

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Biological and Health Sciences, Technological University Dublin, City Campus, Aungier Street, Dublin 2, Ireland
Interests: pregnancy; breastfeeding; complementary feeding; toddlerhood; dietary patterns; food safety
Dr. Annemarie E. Bennett

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Unit of Nutrition and Dietetics, Discipline of Clinical Medicine, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Interests: pregnancy; breastfeeding; complementary feeding; maternal mental health; paternal role; childhood obesity

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The food environment in infancy and early childhood is important not only for meeting nutritional needs, but also for establishing food intake patterns and eating behaviours that potentially set the tone for lifelong eating habits. The importance of these formative years for establishing good health and food-related behaviours, and for offsetting some of the potential impact of factors associated with suboptimal health outcomes, cannot be underestimated.

The period from infancy to the age of 5 years represents multiple significant transitions and developments in food intake. The progression from milk feeding to complementary feeding, and to the eventual exemplar of a wide and varied diet with appropriate feeding skills and mealtime behaviours at the age of 5 years, has been a long-held area of scientific interest. As the food environment continues to evolve, research on these aspects of infancy and early childhood remains pertinent.

This Special Issue in Children will focus on dietary patterns in infancy and among children under the age of 5 years, with particular focus on nutrient intakes, food and meal patterns, and food-related behaviours during this period. Contributions that examine the potential relationship between parental food intakes and behaviours and the intakes and behaviours of infants and children under 5 years are also welcome. Various types of articles, such as original research, articles on methodology, and reviews, will be considered for publication. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. John Kearney
Dr. Annemarie E. Bennett
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Children is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • infancy
  • toddlerhood
  • dietary intake
  • food behaviours
  • nutritional adequacy

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 1439 KiB  
Article
Associations between Cultural Identity, Household Membership and Diet Quality among Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and Filipino Infants in Hawaiʻi
by Jessie Kai, John J. Chen, Kathryn L. Braun, Joseph Keaweʻaimoku Kaholokula, Rachel Novotny, Carol J. Boushey and Marie K. Fialkowski
Children 2022, 9(1), 48; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/children9010048 - 02 Jan 2022
Viewed by 1812
Abstract
Public health efforts to reduce diet-related health disparities experienced by indigenous peoples could be enhanced by efforts to improve complementary infant feeding practices. The latter is possible through interventions informed by cultural determinants. This cross-sectional secondary analysis explored possible determinants of the complementary [...] Read more.
Public health efforts to reduce diet-related health disparities experienced by indigenous peoples could be enhanced by efforts to improve complementary infant feeding practices. The latter is possible through interventions informed by cultural determinants. This cross-sectional secondary analysis explored possible determinants of the complementary feeding practices of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, and/or Filipino infants (NHPIF) in Hawaiʻi, ages 3–12 months. The objective was to determine the association between caregiver cultural identity and infant household membership with indicators of infant diet healthfulness. The cultural identities, infant household memberships, early infant feeding practices and additional demographic information (infant age and sex, household income) were assessed via an online questionnaire. Surrogate reporting of the infants’ diets over four days was evaluated using an image-based mobile food record (mFR). Data collected by the mFR were evaluated to derive the World Health Organization’s minimum dietary diversity (MDD) indicator and food group consumption. Data were summarized by descriptive statistics and analyzed using multivariate linear and logistic regressions. Seventy infant participants, ages 3–12 months, and their primary caregivers completed the study. Of these, there were 56 infant participants between the age of 6–12 months. Approximately 10% of infants, ages 6–12 months, met MDD for all four days. Meeting MDD and the number of food groups consumed were significantly associated with age. Caregiver cultural identity, infant household membership and infant sex had non-significant associations with indicators of infant diet quality. Findings inform the influences shaping dietary patterns of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Filipino infants in Hawaiʻi. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Factors Impacting Dietary Patterns in Infancy and Early Childhood)
13 pages, 827 KiB  
Article
The Role of Caregiver’s Feeding Pattern in the Association between Parents’ and Children’s Healthy Eating Behavior: Study in Taichung, Taiwan
by Hung-En Liao and Yueen-Mei Deng
Children 2021, 8(5), 369; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/children8050369 - 08 May 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2080
Abstract
While parenting style has been linked with parent feeding behavior (FB), little is known about the role FB plays in the relationship between parents’ eating behavior (PEB) and children’s eating behavior (CEB). Based on social learning theory, we hypothesized that children learn to [...] Read more.
While parenting style has been linked with parent feeding behavior (FB), little is known about the role FB plays in the relationship between parents’ eating behavior (PEB) and children’s eating behavior (CEB). Based on social learning theory, we hypothesized that children learn to develop healthy CEB by obeying and imitating parents’ healthy eating and feeding behaviors, and that FB is the mediator between PEB and CEB. In total, 257 survey responses from parents of children up to 5 years old were included in the study. Results indicated that CEB did not differ by children’s age, gender, or birth order; for parents, older age and lower educational levels were associated with less healthy unhealthier FB and PEB. Healthy PEB and FB explained 46.8% and 21.7% of the variance in healthy CEB, respectively. The model confirmed that FB reduced the coefficient of healthy PEB from 0.563 to 0.468 and increased the variance explained from 35.0% to 38.5%. FB was a mediator for PEB and CEB. Discussion covers the complexity of ideal parenting styles and child feeding and their associated effects on CEB in varied environments, including different cultures. We concluded that PEB was the main predictor of CEB, and healthy feeding acted as a mediator. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Factors Impacting Dietary Patterns in Infancy and Early Childhood)
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