Goals, Barriers, and Facilitators of Caregivers Who Participated in an In-Home Intervention to Improve Food Parenting Practices and Child Diet Quality

Abstract

Objective: To explore the goals, barriers, and facilitators set by caregivers of preschool-aged children to improve food parenting practices and household food environments.

Design: Secondary qualitative analysis of collaborative goal sheets completed during in-home and telephone visits as part of a home-based pilot intervention.

Participants: Thirty-three Hispanic/Latinx caregivers, predominantly of low income.

Phenomenon of interest: Patterns in goal content and anticipated barriers and facilitators.

Analysis: Thematic analysis of goal sheets with a mixed inductive-deductive approach.

Results: Almost half of the goals were to support a healthy environment (40.7%) by increasing the availability of healthy foods through food shopping and meal planning. Other goals were to increase structure (33.7%) by establishing food-related routines and decreasing distractions. Goals related to autonomy support (25.4%) included involving their children (eg, cooking together). Caregivers' perceived barriers encompass individual (eg, stress, lack of time), interpersonal (eg, other family members' eating behaviors), and environmental-level (eg, food availability) factors. Caregivers only identified facilitators at the individual and interpersonal levels (eg, motivation).

Conclusions and implications: Understanding goals, barriers, and facilitators can be used to tailor key messages to improve food parenting practices and children's diets. Future interventions can target broader environmental barriers while increasing awareness of individual, interpersonal, and environmental-level facilitators.

Keywords: Hispanic/Latinx; food parenting practices; goal setting; home food environment; preschool-aged children.