title: Cultural differences in parental feeding practices and children's eating behaviours and their relationships with child BMI: a comparison of Black Afro-Caribbean, White British and White German samples.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Childhood obesity rates differ between cultural groups in Europe. Parents influence their children's weight status and eating behaviours through feeding practices. We investigated cultural differences in feeding practices and eating behaviours and their relation to child weight in three groups that differed in cultural background and geographical location.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fifty-two White German (WG) families, in Germany (44 mothers, mean age 33.8 years), 79 White British (WB) families, in the UK (74 mothers, mean age 37.8) and 40 Black Afro-Caribbean (BAC) families, in the UK (34 mothers, mean age 31.8) participated in this study of 2-12-year-old children. Parents completed questionnaires assessing feeding practices and eating behaviours; children were measured and weighed by experimenters.
  
  
  RESULTS
  MANCOVAs indicated that BAC parents used the highest levels of restrictive feeding practices and the lowest levels of monitoring, and their children showed the highest levels of food-approach behaviours. WG parents used the lowest levels of pressure to eat. Partial correlations showed that food-approach behaviours were correlated with child BMI in BAC and WG families but not in WB families. Parental restriction was associated with child Body Mass Index (BMI) in BAC families only.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There are both similarities and differences in feeding practices and eating behaviours and their relationships with child weight in different cultural groups. Findings highlight the importance of being aware of cultural differences when carrying out research with multi-cultural samples in Europe.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. j.blissett@bham.ac.uk
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blissett
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Bennett
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D044383:Black People; D015992:Body Mass Index; D017691:Caribbean Region / Q000208:ethnology; D002648:Child; D002668:Child Rearing / Q000208:ethnology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004032:Diet / Q000208:ethnology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000208:ethnology; D005260:Female; D005518:Food Preferences; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009765:Obesity / Q000209:etiology*; D010290:Parents; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D006113:United Kingdom; D044465:White People