Abstract
BackgroundEvidence on child feeding practice is often based on the perspectives and experiences of parents and less that of health practitioners. In this study, we explored child feeding practice in Aboriginal communities in northern Australia from both the parents and health practitioners’ perspectives with the aim of informing nutrition improvement programs.MethodsQualitative research methods were employed. Using semi-structured interviews, parents (n = 30) of children aged 2–5 years, and 29 service providers who were involved in the delivery of child health and nutrition programs in the same communities, were asked about child feeding attitudes and practices. Responses were analyzed through inductive and deductive analysis, recognizing that worldviews influence child feeding practices.ResultsSharing food was a central practice within families. Parents highly valued development of child independence in food behavior but were conflicted with the easy access to unhealthy food in their communities. This easy access to unhealthy food and inadequate food storage and kitchen facilities for some families were major challenges to achieving optimal diets for children identified by Aboriginal families and service providers. The responsive style of parenting described by parents was often misunderstood by service providers as sub-optimal parenting when viewed through a dominant western lens.ConclusionsApproaches to support healthy feeding practices and optimal child nutrition require health-enabling food environments. Along with a community-based Aboriginal health workforce, it is paramount that the non-Aboriginal workforce be supported to be reflective of the impact of worldview on their practice, to ensure a culturally safe environment for families where parenting styles are understood and appropriately supported.
Highlights
Evidence on child feeding practice is often based on the perspectives and experiences of parents and less that of health practitioners
To build on the study by Kruske et al [26], we aimed to explore existing child feeding practices from the perspective of Aboriginal parents, families and health care service providers in the community
While several parents indicated their child to have unhealthy food only sometimes, they commented that these foods were wanted by their child when their parent, cousins or others were observed by the child to consume these
Summary
Evidence on child feeding practice is often based on the perspectives and experiences of parents and less that of health practitioners. Based on the amount and quality of parental control of a child’s food behavior (demandingness) and the degree to which parents are accepting and sensitive to their children’s emotional and developmental needs (responsiveness) [3], feeding practices are traditionally characterized as; i) authoritative (high demandingness and high responsiveness), ii) authoritarian (high demandingness and low responsiveness), iii) indulgent/permissive (low demandingness and high responsiveness) and, iv) uninvolved (low demandingness and low responsiveness) [4,5,6] This typology is generally used to assess the association between feeding practices and child health outcomes. The findings of these studies may not be generalizable to nonwestern populations [6, 9, 10]
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