Family matters: home characteristics related to dietary intake of fruit, vegetables and sugar-sweetened beverages in a national cross-sectional sample of school-aged children in the U.S.

backgroundHome environments shape children's dietary habits, but which factors are most influential is unclear. The study purpose was to identify factors in the home environment associated with child intake of fruit and vegetables (FV) and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) using a national dataset collected in 2013-2015 in the U.S.

methodsData from 5,138 school-aged children (4-15 years old) from 130 U.S. communities were collected in 2013-2015. Parents and/or children completed a dietary screener and additional survey questions to assess household socioeconomic status (SES), grocery shopping sources, home food availability, social support for healthy eating, eating out frequency, and other home eating and related behaviors. Other child characteristics included breastfeeding history, intake of school foods, and participation in other nutrition programs. Community variables included predominant race/ethnicity and SES. Classification and regression trees (CART) identified key predictors of intake.

resultsThe FV and SSB CARTS had 14 and 12 terminal groups, respectively. Children with the highest FV intake (0.54 SD from mean cups/day; 13% of sample) had fruit more often available at home, dark green vegetables more often available at home, ate dinner with family more often, had SSBs less often available at home, and were breastfed longer. Conversely, children in the two groups with the lowest FV intake either had fruit less often available at home, and family never complimented their eating (-0.86; 2%), or they had family that rarely or sometimes complimented their eating, and perceived school lunches as unhealthy (-0.87; 1%). For SSB intake, the lowest consumers (-0.63 SD from mean tsp/day sugar; 17%) never or rarely had SSBs available at home, and lived in higher SES communities. Children in the two groups with the highest SSB intakes had SSBs available at home more often, and lived in a SNAP-participating household and either ate out less often, used a phone/computer for social networking, and had SSBs available at home very often (1.3; 1%), or they ate out more often, and were breastfed for a shorter duration (1.1; 5%).

conclusionsHome availability of FV and SSBs were the most salient predictors of intake of both FV and SSBs, while other predictors differed between FV and SSB intake. Study findings highlight several actionable home-environment strategies to test in future studies to improve school-aged children's diets.