Relationship of Chinese American parental perceptions and feeding practices, feeding styles and level of acculturation to their school-age child's weight status

The childhood obesity rate is increasing among Chinese Americans, a rapidly growing group. Parents act as eating-gatekeepers, directly determining their child's environment and indirectly influencing the child's eating behavior and attitudes. The role of parental feeding practices and feeding styles for Chinese American children may be the product of specific cultural influences. The objective of this study was to explore the relationships among Chinese American parental perceptions of parents' own and their school-age child's weight status, feeding practices, feeding styles, and level of parental acculturation (LPA) in the New York City area. This survey study involved a convenience sample of 712 individuals (response rate 71.2%) who were parents of 5-10 year old children attending Chinese language after-schools. The self-administered questionnaire consisted of: (1) an acculturation scale (Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation scale (SL-ASIA)), (2) child feeding practices questions from the Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ), (3) feeding styles questions from the Caregiver's Feeding Styles Questionnaire (CFSQ), and (4) demographic information. The prevalence of overweight was 11.5% and obesity was 11.1%.;Chinese American parents tend to have an indulgent (32.8%) and/or authoritarian (29.1%) feeding style. PLA was not directly related to child overweight but it was positively correlated with the indulgent parenting style, along with responsiveness (p< .001), which in turn were both positively related to child overweight. PLA was also positively related perceived responsibility in child feeding (p< .05) and negatively to practices of monitoring child food intake (p< .05) and the pressure to eat healthy foods (p< .01), which were also positively related to child overweight (p< .01). These perceptions and practices were positively related to the indulgent feeding style which in turn was related to child overweight. Consequently, the indulgent feeding style should be discouraged. Both authoritarian and authoritative parents had fewer overweight children and were high in demandingness, but authoritarian parents also showed low responsiveness. These findings can be used to design nutrition education interventions with Chinese American parents to help them assess their own parental feeding styles and practices and to teach them authoritative feeding style skills that are more likely to lead to children with healthy weights.