Parents' food goals felt more automatic after home visits, with no group to compare
Who it’s about: Parents
- No comparison
Parents who set one clear food goal at a time said it felt much more automatic within six weeks.
- Action: Eat fruit and vegetablesused
- Action: Track your progressused
- Rule: Write down when and whereused
- Rule: With a coach or therapistused
Small study of one group of 57 parents of young children in London · no comparison group · they rated themselves · ⚠ intervention arm only, no comparison analysed; post-hoc analysis; numbers unreliable
- No comparison
Goals tied to a meal or event grew a bit more automatic in two weeks than others, but not reliably.
Small study of one group of 57 parents of young children in London · no comparison group · they rated themselves · ⚠ intervention arm only, no comparison analysed; post-hoc analysis; numbers unreliable
The study
Who took part
57 parents of children aged 2 to 6, from three Children's Centres in London, UK. Most were women, about 35 on average.
What they did
Parents had four one-hour home visits with a trained researcher, about two weeks apart. At each visit they set one clear goal for what their child ate or drank, such as two vegetables with dinner. They chose when and where to do it, planned for problems and ticked off progress between visits.
What happened
Parents said their first goal felt much more automatic six weeks later, and it stayed that way 14 weeks after the start. With no other group to compare, we don't know if the visits caused this, and the paper's counts don't match. Whether goals were well made, or tied to a meal rather than a clock time, made no clear difference.
Source
Putting habit into practice, and practice into habit: a process evaluation and exploration of the acceptability of a habit-based dietary behaviour change intervention (2014)
DOI: 10.1186/s12966-014-0135-7 (opens in a new tab)
