The effect of parents' lifestyle on Schoolchildren's consumption of ultra-processed food

Objectives

To assess the association between schoolchildren's consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and various lifestyle factors of their parents in Brazil.

Study design

Cross-sectional population-based study with parent-child dyads aged 6–11.

Methods

The sample was distributed proportionally across Brazilian macro-regions and type of school. Recruitment utilized the snowball technique, and participants filled in an online questionnaire. Initially, parents provided data on education, eating practices, food consumption markers, screen time, and physical activity. Subsequently, their children reported their UPF consumption using the Illustrated Questionnaire on Food Consumption for Brazilian Schoolchildren. The UPF consumption among children was assessed using the NOVA score. Poisson's regression log-linear analysis was performed (p < 0.05) with adjustments for macro-regions, type of school (as a proxy for socioeconomic status), gender, and age of the child.

Results

This study included a total of 2021 child-parent dyads. On average, children consumed 3.5 UPFs on the previous day. We found a significant association between high consumption of UPFs by the child and parents with less healthy eating practices (p < 0.05), excessive screen time (p < 0.05), and high UPF consumption (p < 0.05).

Conclusions

These findings demonstrate a relationship between Brazilian schoolchildren's consumption of UPFs and various lifestyle factors of their parents, particularly regarding eating practices, food consumption markers, screen time, and physical activity. This underscores the importance of the home food environment in shaping children's health during this critical developmental stage of life, emphasizing the need to incorporate support for family lifestyle factors into public health policies.