Relationships between family environment and children's dietary behaviours: data from the 2006 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey

C. Kelly, M. Molcho, S. Nic Gabhainn
2010 Proceedings of the Nutrition Society  
The family environment has been shown to influence the dietary behaviours of young people (1) . In Ireland, aspects of the family environment such as family size and structure have changed relatively recently (2) , making it timely to investigate the relationships between the family environment and the dietary habits of children living here. For this paper, data from the 2006 Irish Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) study were employed to investigate how family make-up, such as
more » ... and structure and maternal employment predict the dietary habits of children. HBSC is a school-based survey with data collected through self-completion questionnaires administered in the classroom. HBSC Ireland collected data in 2006 from school children, aged 10-18 years (n 10 334). Ethical approval was granted for the study, and consent from schools, parents and children was obtained. Self-reported data on foodstuff consumption and food behaviours were dichotomised into frequent (daily or > daily) v. less frequent consumption or behaviour. Associations between maternal employment, family structure and size and both foodstuff consumption and food behaviours were expressed in OR from logistic regression models in SPSS, version 15.0.
doi:10.1017/s0029665110002077 fatcat:pjk4edln3zadjjfqfuzpdugfs4