Parental feeding style among elementary school students in Semarang city

Abstract

Semarang City has high prevalence of obese children. The prevalence in the age group of 5-12 years old in 2018 (15.57% overweight and 12.30% obese), higher than the provincial and national prevalence. Children's dietary habits are greatly influenced by parents' role. This study aimed to describe parental feeding style among elementary school students in Semarang City. This was a cross-sectional study using primary data from students and their parents. Data was taken by measuring students' anthropometry and interviewing parents using the PFSQ by Wardle et al. Samples were 355 students and 355 parents from 15 Elementary Schools in Semarang City. There were 51.83% female and 48.17% male students. Students were 9-13 y.o (highest was 10 y.o-54.37%). There were 21.69% students in the category of more than normal (overweight and obese). As much as 45.35% of parents were fat and obese. There were 18.31% parents were applying instrumental feeding, 34.93% parents were applying emotional feeding, 99.44% parents were applying prompting/encouragement to eat, and 56.34% parents were applying control feeding style. Almost all elementary school parents applied prompting/encouragement to eat which is considered as a participatory process of eating that has a better and long-term impact on children's eating habits.