Journal article
A Media Literacy-Based Nutrition Program Fosters Parent-Child Food Marketing Discussions, Improves Home Food Environment, and Youth Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables
Childhood obesity, Vol.16(1), pp.S33-S43
08/01/2020
PMID: 32311295
Abstract
Background: Media use is a known contributor to childhood obesity, but encouraging reductions in screen use only partially eliminates media influence. We tested a family-centered, media literacy-oriented intervention to empower parents and children 9-14 years to skillfully use media to reduce marketing influences, enhance nutrition knowledge, improve the selection of foods in the home environment, and improve fruit and vegetable consumption.
Methods: A community-based, 6-U program included separate parent and youth (ages 9-14 years) sessions, each of which was followed by a session together in which skills from the individual sessions were reinforced. A pretest to posttest field test with control groups (N = 189, parent-child dyads) tested the intervention's efficacy.
Results: Standardized mean differences from the multiple analysis of covariance tests showed that the intervention group demonstrated improvements on parents' use of nutrition labels (0.29), the ratio of healthy to unhealthy food in the home environment (0.25), youth's fruit (0.30) and vegetable (0.25) consumption, parent and youth media literacy skills, and family communication dynamics about food. The largest effects found were for negative parental mediation (0.48) and parents' report of child-initiated discussion (0.47). Consistent but weaker results were revealed for Latinx families.
Conclusions: This family-centered approach helped family members practice using media together to make better nutrition decisions without depending on the ability of parents to limit media use. It successfully addressed the often-negative impact of the media on behaviors that increase obesity risk while also cultivating the potential for media to provide useful information that can lead to behaviors that decrease obesity risk.
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Details
- Title
- A Media Literacy-Based Nutrition Program Fosters Parent-Child Food Marketing Discussions, Improves Home Food Environment, and Youth Consumption of Fruits and Vegetables
- Creators
- Erica Weintraub Austin - Washington State University, Strategic Communication, Department ofBruce Austin - Washington State University, Department of Kinesiology and Educational PsychologyChristopher Kit Kaiser - Western State HospitalZena Edwards - Washington State University, WSU Extension Youth and FamiliesLouise Parker - Washington State University, Human Development, Department ofThomas G. Power - Washington State University, Human Development, Department of
- Publication Details
- Childhood obesity, Vol.16(1), pp.S33-S43
- Academic Unit
- Strategic Communication, Department of
- Publisher
- Mary Ann Liebert, Inc
- Number of pages
- 11
- Grant note
- 2012-68001-19618 / National Institute of Food and Agriculture, US Department of Agriculture; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
- Identifiers
- 99901130241201842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article