Role of Preschool Parents in Child’s Eating Behaviour

Running head: Healthcare
Healthcare
Report
System04104
4/10/2019

Healthcare
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Introduction
The food choice is directly related to the health development of children. Food choices each
day affect the health of kids, children, and even the youths. Good nutrition is the essence of a
healthy and prosperous life for all the people, and especially for children. In fact,
understanding of children’s’ eating behaviour is the key in their health development. The role
of parents is unavoidable in the growth and health development of children. The proper food
eating habits and proper diet in children help them to maintain a healthy weight and good
health that keep them away from future diseases and health related issues in their adult age. It
also helps to reduce chronic disease that appears in the adult age (Ek, et. al., 2016). The
present work shows the influential role of parents in the eating behaviour of children. The
present work shows how parents regulate the body dissatisfaction of the child. This report
also shows how parents can control the behaviour of children with a healthy eating schedule
and with proper diet. This research also shows that how dietary habits of children help them
in their adult health. It has been seen that working parents do not give sufficient time to their
children and do not care about their diet plan because of their busy schedule (Pieper and
Laugero, 2013). Further, it causes a number of health-related problems to the children in a
very early stage of their life. The present study focuses on two aspects of control: pressuring
the child to eat healthy food and restriction on the child to avoid junk food with restricting the
amount of food. The result of the essay showed a significant role of parents in the child eating
habit. This report shows how parents can create a healthy environment for children by
employing healthy eating behaviours and through eating motivations. In conclusion, the
positive attitude of parents may be better a way for improving a child's eating behaviour and
their diets than controlling and restricting the diet of children.
Role of Preschool Parents in Child’s Eating Behaviour
This session is planned with preschool parents because parents play an important role in the
child health development. The importance of healthy eating is essential in modern days where
children are more attracted towards junk foods rather than homemade healthy foods (Salvy,
De La Haye, Bowker, and Hermans, 2012). The junk food consumption brings numbers of
health related problems for the children, such as malnutrition, overweights, low weight,
obesity etc. Role of parents cannot be avoided when we talk about the health of children and
their eating schedule. These two factors are directly correlated with each other. The various

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past researches shown that child eating behaviour is connected with the family eating
environment including parents own eating behaviour and child feeding practices (Hebebrand,
et. al., 2014).
Obesity is a major problem in children where excessive weight and fat is gain in the body. It
is often seen that parents ignore the child's weight and ignore the effect it might have on later
stage in the life of a child. The abnormal eating habit of children causes paediatric obesity
such as type 2 diabetes in children, hypertension, and later in life, it causes adult obesity
(Strasburger, Jordan, and Donnerstein, 2010). Therefore, the need of time is to spread
awareness among the parents about their important role in child eating habit/behaviour and
promote the importance of a healthy diet in preschool parents. Parents create environments
for children and are responsible to create a healthy eating behaviour in the home. Parents may
promote healthy eating and development behaviour to gain proper weight in children or can
also responsible for overweight and various disorders of eating behaviour (Skouteris, et.al.,
2011). It has been seen that preschool children follow their parental eating styles, their
activity, and how their parents feeding them. However, the child eating habit not only
determined by what parents provide them as their food rather their own eating styles also
determines the way that how their children take their meals.
Relevant behaviour change theory
The ‘Theory of planned behaviour' is applied to the eating behaviour of children and it served
as a framework that helps to understand the behaviour of parents. It also helps to understand
the perception of parents and ensuring their children eat a healthy diet. This theory says that
there are various factors such as beliefs and behaviour of parents within the society, within
the families, within the cultures etc. are the supreme cause that determines the behaviour of
parents who influence or fail to influence the eating behaviour of their children (Natale, et.
al., 2014). This theory is helpful in predicting the factors directly related to healthy eating
behaviour in children. This theory suggests that other factors driving children towards healthy
eating behaviour and it is not limited to parental pressure and restriction. If parents help their
children to understand the benefit of proper dieting, then they will be habituated about the
proper dieting (Gahagan, 2012).
Children need a proper diet and adequate healthy nutrition for physical and mental growth.
The role of parents is important because if they educate their children about healthy foods
and proper diet plan, they can avoid various diseases in children like obesity, hypertension,