Objective:  Food parenting, or strategies that parents use to shape children’s dietary behaviors, is a robust area of inquiry with over 500 published studies to date. The majority of this research, however, has focused on mothers. Given the diversity of family structures today, and increases in the time fathers engage in caregiving, fathers’ food parenting and its impact on children warrants attention. This study presents results from a scoping review of research on fathers’ food parenting, summarizes knowledge gaps and recommends future directions.

Methods:  Consistent with scoping review guidelines, we searched multiple databases (PubMed, PSYCHINFO, CINAHL, EDSCO) using a standard search string. Eligible studies (a) were peer-reviewed and published in English, (b) measured food parenting practices, and (c) reported results for fathers separate from mothers. Clinical studies and those focused on the pre-weaning period (0-6 mons) or adult children (>18 years) were excluded.

Results: Sixty six eligible studies were identified. The majority of studies (N=46, 70%) were published in 2011 or later.  More than half of studies (N=41) were conducted in the United States, followed by 11 studies in Europe. Twenty one studies were published in Appetite compared with 2 studies in IJBNPA. While all studies included data on fathers, only 27% focused on fathers. Studies included a range of ages of the referent child and the racial/ethnic make-up of participants was varied. Fathers self-reported their food parenting practices in most studies (74%) compared with maternal report (9%), child report (5%) or behavioral observation (6%). The vast majority of studies were cross sectional (N=62, 94%), utilized quantitative methods (81%) and included residential fathers (65%); 14% included non-residential fathers and 21% did not report fathers’ residential status.

Conclusion:  Strengths of the literature include a reliance on father self-report of food parenting practices (versus proxy reporters) and the varied age range of children and racial/ethnic groups considered. The relative lack of longitudinal studies that explicitly focus on fathers and include non-residential and/or social fathers are gaps in the literature to address in future research.

Food parenting practices are an important determinant of childhood obesity, but published research exploring the influence of parenting practices on children’s eating behaviours has mainly focused on the parenting practices of mothers. Little is known about whether mothers and fathers use similar food parenting practices to encourage their children in adopting healthy eating practices. This study examined invariances in psychometric properties of food parenting practices by parent’s gender and whether Canadian mothers and fathers use different food parenting practices. Methods. Parents of 5-12 year children (n=799) were recruited by a Canadian marketing research company to complete the food parenting practice item banks (86 items) measuring 11 constructs. A quota sampling approach was used to ensure adequate representation by gender of parents and to match the income and ethnicity distribution of the Canadian population (50% mothers, 51% white/Caucasian, 22% reporting an annual household income < $50,000 CAD). Measurement invariance was first established using Item Response Modeling Differential Item Functioning analyses to ensure the 11 constructs can be validly compared between mothers and fathers. Differences in scores were then assessed using Student’s T tests (for normally distributed variables) and Mann Whitney U tests for non-normally distributed variables. Multivariable regression analyses were then conducted to examine differences in food parenting practices after adjusting for children’s age, sex, parental ethnicity, education attainment, and household income. Results. The psychometric properties of the food parenting practices constructs were found to be invariant by parents' gender.  After adjusting for covariates, parents’ gender was associated with directive control practices. Mothers reported using less directive control compared to fathers (standardized β=-0.14 from covariate adjusted models, p=0.001). None of the other food parenting practices examined (involvement, scaffolding healthy eating, restriction for weight, nondirective support, healthy opportunities, rules and limits, routines, redirection, healthy environment and permissive) differed by parents’ gender.  Conclusion. Canadian mothers and fathers have generally similar food parenting practices, but mothers exert less directive control compared to fathers. Since controlling parenting practices have been associated with poor self-regulatory skills in children, intervention messages need to particularly reach fathers. 

Purpose: Parents of children with difficult temperaments may need to implement a variety of behavioural management strategies, particularly during mealtimes. Fussy eating is a nuanced, mealtime-specific behavioural outcome associated with difficult temperament but has been rarely examined with respect to a positive, structured mealtime environment. The aim of the study was first, to examine associations between child temperament and mothers’ and fathers’ structure-related food parenting practices and, second, to explore whether these associations were mediated by child fussy eating. 

Methods: Cohabiting mother-father pairs (N=205) of children aged between 2- to 5-years residing in a socioeconomically disadvantaged Australian city completed self-reported, validated measures of child temperament, food fussiness and structure-related food parenting practices (structured meal timing, structured meal setting and family meal setting). Key variables were compared across parent gender before associations were examined. All models were tested separately for mothers and fathers and where appropriate adjusted for covariates.

Results: Fathers perceived their child as having a more difficult temperament (P=0.016) and reported using lower levels of structured meal timing (P=0.003) than mothers. Structured meal timing was not significantly associated with food fussiness for either mother or father reports and therefore was not examined further. Child temperament was associated with maternal and paternal structure-related food parenting practices, such that more difficult temperament was associated with less mealtime structure. Food fussiness fully mediated the relationship between mothers’ reports of child temperament and family meal setting. Father’s reports of child temperament was only associated with structured meal setting and family meal setting through the effect of child fussy eating. 

Conclusions: For both, mothers and fathers, perceptions of child food fussiness may explain why parents use less structure at mealtimes with more difficult children. This suggests that, when designing interventions to manage child fussy eating both mothers and fathers would benefit from similar approaches. Promoting mealtime structure to facilitate parents’ appropriate responses to food refusal or difficult behaviour at mealtimes is indicated.