Analyzing relationship between maternal feeding practice and fruit and vegetable intakes of preschoolers

Objective To analyze the association between feeding practice and fruit and vegetable intakes of preschoolers,and to provide the reference for instructing the feeding practice.Methods Totally,1 157 mothers of children aged 2-5 selected from Hangzhou by using stratified sampling method were surveyed.Ten aspects of maternal feeding practices were evaluated by using a Comprehensive Feeding Behavior Questionnaire(CFBQ).The consumption of children's fruit and vegetable were measured by item of fruit and vegetable frequency during the past 7 days.Spearman's rank order correlation was used to analyze the relationship between maternal feeding practice and fruit and vegetable intakes of preschoolers,linear regression analysis was used to identify the effects of dimensions of CFBQ on both fruit and vegetable intakes of preschoolers.Results A total of 72.8% of preschoolers consumed fruits each day and 66.4% consumed vegetable daily.Among the feeding practices,building a healthy home food environment,encouraging a balance and diverse diet,and preschoolers' involvement in making food were positively related with the intake of vegetable(β=0.43,0.33,0.19,P<0.05),and restriction of unhealthy food was negatively related to vegetable consumption of preschoolers(β=-0.30,P=0.015);Furthermore,encouraging a balance and diverse diet,monitoring and building a healthy eating environment were positively related to preschoolers' intakes of fruits(β=0.47,0.39,0.35,P<0.05),while restriction of unhealthy food was negatively related to fruit consumption(β=-0.31,P =0.036).Conclusion Parents should encourage children to have a balanced and diverse diet,and establish a good eating evironment to improve the intake of fruit and vegetables of preschoolers.