Objective: Little is known about parent feeding practices with siblings. Because this is a new area of research, qualitative research is needed to understand parents' perspectives about how they make decisions about feeding siblings and whether they adapt their feeding practices dependent on sibling characteristics such as weight status. The main objective of the current study was to describe parent feeding practices with siblings.
Design: Qualitative cross-sectional study with 88 parents with at least 2 siblings.
Setting: Parents were interviewed in their homes in Minneapolis/St Paul Minnesota.
Participants: Parents were from racially/ethnically diverse (64% African American) and low-income households (77% earned < $35,000/y).
Main outcome measure: Parents' perceptions of feeding practices with siblings.
Analysis: Qualitative interviews were coded using a hybrid deductive and inductive content analysis approach.
Results: Parents indicated that they used child food preferences, in-the-moment decisions, and planned meals when deciding how to feed siblings. Additionally, the majority of parents indicated that they managed picky eating by making 1 meal or giving some flexibility/leeway to siblings about having other food options. Furthermore, parents endorsed using different feeding practices (eg, food restriction, portion control, pressure-to-eat, opportunities for healthful eating) with siblings dependent on child weight status or age/developmental stage.
Conclusions and implications: Findings from the current study may inform future research regarding how to measure parent feeding practices with siblings in the home environment and the development of interventions tailored for families with multiple children in the home. Future quantitative research is needed to confirm these qualitative findings.
Keywords: childhood obesity; parent feeding practices; qualitative; siblings; weight status.
Copyright © 2016 Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.