Editorial: Healthy eating and parenting messages to prevent obesity

This Research Topic brought together research from multiple countries about messages that address where, when, why, and how to eat or feed children with the intent to support healthy eating and prevent obesity. Dr. Ramuscack and colleagues observed improved parent awareness, knowledge, and opinions about the 2019 Canada's Food Guide compared to the earlier 2007 version. Use of the Food Guide by parents of young children remains persistently low from 2007 to 2019 but given the high recall of the plate model recommendation, the authors call for research that investigates whether practicing this recommendation translates to dietary changes. Also from North America, Dr. Shamah-Levy and colleagues evaluated data from six National Health and Nutrition Surveys in Mexico and report the obeso-protective effects of increased fruit and vegetable consumption among school-age children. They discuss cross-cutting environmental policies to promote the availability and consumption of sustainable, and affordable foods to protect against overweight and obesity among children. Policy strategies aimed at reducing sugar sweetened beverage remain an important topic in North America. In a qualitative study, Dr. Haynes-Maslow and colleagues observe that adolescents appreciate the long-term drawbacks of sugar-sweetened beverages but held positive perceptions about consuming these beverages at social and special events. These findings suggest that messages focusing on short-term health consequences may be protective. This Research Topic also yielded innovative approaches for understanding the high prevalence of child overweight and obesity. Reporting from the Arab countries, Dr. Habib-Mourd and colleagues describe a novel public-private partnership to advance healthy nutrition and physical activity among school-age children. Their framework offers a potentially sustainable, culturally tailored model that could be delivered at scale for primary prevention. Dr. Karssen and colleagues report on an app-based program to promote healthy parenting practices early in life. Promising growth outcomes were observed after six-months among children with parents randomized to the app condition compared to children in the waitlist-control group. Dr. Nezami and colleagues also report on an mHealth intervention that engaged adults with overweight and obesity and their child. At the six-month follow-up they observed an inverse dose-response relationship between parent app use and proportion of calories from fat and overall collateral benefits between parent dietary changes and child intake.Multiple papers investigated strategies understand the association between parenting practices, home and family environment, and child factors. Dr. Papaioannou and colleagues advance science about parent feeding styles, dietary quality, and weight in Hispanic families with low household incomes. While most research has been cross sectional, they report findings about the directionality of the influence with a prospective longitudinal study. Specifically, an authoritarian feeding style may offer protection in the self-regulatory processes around child appetitive traits. Dr. Eagelton and colleagues also report findings from a prospective longitudinal study in early life. They identified pressure-based feeding and the use of food to soothe as intervention targets to protect against infant food responsiveness. In another prospective study, Dr. Loth and colleagues report on the use of Ecological Momentary Assessment to evaluate practices among parents of preschool aged children. Their findings underscore the need to understand how context influences parenting practices and the need to better support parents in response to stress and other factors. Finally, Dr. Larsen and colleagues conducted a systematic review related to parenting practices with a focused lens on the families with a lower socioeconomic position. The structural and social factors that parents face warrant attention to promote healthy growth and development. Specifically, targeting structure-related food parenting practices that make healthy foods available and accessible should be an upstream priority to establish a more protective environment. This Research Topic identifies research gaps, informs the translation of evidence to practice, and may inform future policy guidance to better advance public health objectives related to healthy childhood weight.

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