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‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK

In the UK, ethnic minority children are at greater risk of obesity and weight-related ill health compared to the wider national population. The factors that influence the provision of a healthy diet among these populations remain less understood. An interpretive qualitative study with a phenomenolog...

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Autores principales: Cook, Erica Jane, Powell, Faye Caroline, Ali, Nasreen, Penn-Jones, Catrin Pedder, Ochieng, Bertha, Constantinou, Georgina, Randhawa, Gurch
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8700847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948698
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413087
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author Cook, Erica Jane
Powell, Faye Caroline
Ali, Nasreen
Penn-Jones, Catrin Pedder
Ochieng, Bertha
Constantinou, Georgina
Randhawa, Gurch
author_facet Cook, Erica Jane
Powell, Faye Caroline
Ali, Nasreen
Penn-Jones, Catrin Pedder
Ochieng, Bertha
Constantinou, Georgina
Randhawa, Gurch
author_sort Cook, Erica Jane
collection PubMed
description In the UK, ethnic minority children are at greater risk of obesity and weight-related ill health compared to the wider national population. The factors that influence the provision of a healthy diet among these populations remain less understood. An interpretive qualitative study with a phenomenological perspective comprised of 24 single sex semi-structured focus groups was conducted with 110 parents (63 mothers and 47 fathers) of young children (aged 0–5 years). The participants were recruited from deprived and ethnically diverse wards in Luton, UK and self-identified as being white British, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, black African–Caribbean or Polish. The findings highlighted a wide range of inter-relating psychological and sociocultural factors that underpin parental beliefs and practices in providing children with a healthy diet. Parents, whilst aware of the importance of providing children with a healthy diet, faced challenges such as lack of time and balancing competing responsibilities, which were clear barriers to providing children with a healthy diet. Access to and affordability of healthy food and the overexposure of cheap, convenient, and unhealthy processed foods made it increasingly difficult for parents to provide a healthy diet for their growing families. Household food practices were also found to be situated within the wider context of sociocultural and religious norms around cooking and eating, along with cultural identity and upbringing.
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spelling pubmed-87008472021-12-24 ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK Cook, Erica Jane Powell, Faye Caroline Ali, Nasreen Penn-Jones, Catrin Pedder Ochieng, Bertha Constantinou, Georgina Randhawa, Gurch Int J Environ Res Public Health Article In the UK, ethnic minority children are at greater risk of obesity and weight-related ill health compared to the wider national population. The factors that influence the provision of a healthy diet among these populations remain less understood. An interpretive qualitative study with a phenomenological perspective comprised of 24 single sex semi-structured focus groups was conducted with 110 parents (63 mothers and 47 fathers) of young children (aged 0–5 years). The participants were recruited from deprived and ethnically diverse wards in Luton, UK and self-identified as being white British, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, black African–Caribbean or Polish. The findings highlighted a wide range of inter-relating psychological and sociocultural factors that underpin parental beliefs and practices in providing children with a healthy diet. Parents, whilst aware of the importance of providing children with a healthy diet, faced challenges such as lack of time and balancing competing responsibilities, which were clear barriers to providing children with a healthy diet. Access to and affordability of healthy food and the overexposure of cheap, convenient, and unhealthy processed foods made it increasingly difficult for parents to provide a healthy diet for their growing families. Household food practices were also found to be situated within the wider context of sociocultural and religious norms around cooking and eating, along with cultural identity and upbringing. MDPI 2021-12-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8700847/ /pubmed/34948698 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413087 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Cook, Erica Jane
Powell, Faye Caroline
Ali, Nasreen
Penn-Jones, Catrin Pedder
Ochieng, Bertha
Constantinou, Georgina
Randhawa, Gurch
‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title_full ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title_fullStr ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title_full_unstemmed ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title_short ‘They Are Kids, Let Them Eat’: A Qualitative Investigation into the Parental Beliefs and Practices of Providing a Healthy Diet for Young Children among a Culturally Diverse and Deprived Population in the UK
title_sort ‘they are kids, let them eat’: a qualitative investigation into the parental beliefs and practices of providing a healthy diet for young children among a culturally diverse and deprived population in the uk
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8700847/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34948698
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413087
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