Wan Alison Wing Lam, Chung Kevin Kien Hoa, Li Jian-Bin, Xu Shebe Siwei, Chan Derwin King Chung
Department of Early Childhood Education, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Front Nutr. 2024 Aug 21;11:1428852. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1428852. eCollection 2024.
This study aimed to initially adopt an International Healthy Eating Report Card for Preschool-Aged Children to assess the prevalence of healthy eating behaviours and favourable family home food environments (FHFEs) among preschool-aged children in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the US. We also examined which cultural contexts would exhibit significant differences in the report card scores among the four cultural contexts.
In this cross-cultural study, 2059 parent-child dyads, with approximately 500 dyads in each cultural context, were recruited. The parents were asked to complete the validated International Healthy Eating Report Card Scale to assess the dimensions of the Report Card [i.e., Indicator of Children's Eating Behaviours: (1) Children's Dietary Patterns and (2) Children's Mealtime Behaviours, and Indicator of FHFEs: (3) Parental Food Choices and Preparation, (4) Home Healthier Food Availability and Accessibility and (5) Family Mealtime Environments]. Each indicator received a letter grade [i.e., A (≥80%) = excellent, B (60-79%) = good, C (40-59%) = fair, D (20-39%) = poor, F (<20%) = very poor and including the plus (+) and minus (-) signs] to represent the proportion of participants who could meet the predefined benchmarks. We also employed ANCOVA and Bonferroni's post-hoc test to examine the differences in the report card scores between the four cultural contexts. A significance level was set at < 0.05.
The average overall report card grade across the four cultural contexts was "B-" (Good), ranging from "C+" (Singapore and the US) to "B-" (Australia and Hong Kong). The average grade for Children's Eating Behaviours was classified as Fair ("C-"), while the average grade for FHFEs was classified as Good ("B+") for all cultural contexts. A comparison of the overall report card scores revealed that Australia exhibited a significantly higher report card score than Singapore and the US, while Hong Kong achieved a significantly higher score than Singapore.
The International Healthy Eating Report Card provided an overview of the prevalence of healthy eating in different cultural contexts. We believe that the International Healthy Eating Report Card may offer new perspectives on interventions for fostering healthy eating in young children.
本研究旨在初步采用《国际学龄前儿童健康饮食报告卡》，以评估澳大利亚、中国香港、新加坡和美国学龄前儿童的健康饮食行为流行情况以及良好的家庭饮食环境（FHFEs）。我们还研究了在这四种文化背景中，哪些文化背景在报告卡分数上会呈现出显著差异。
在这项跨文化研究中，招募了2059对亲子，每种文化背景下约有500对。要求家长完成经过验证的《国际健康饮食报告卡量表》，以评估报告卡的各个维度[即儿童饮食行为指标：（1）儿童饮食模式和（2）儿童用餐行为，以及FHFEs指标：（3）家长的食物选择和准备、（4）家中更健康食物的可获得性和可及性，以及（5）家庭用餐环境]。每个指标都获得一个字母等级[即A（≥80%）=优秀，B（60 - 79%）=良好，C（40 - 59%）=中等，D（20 - 39%）=较差，F（<20%）=非常差，包括加号（+）和减号（-）]，以代表能够达到预定基准的参与者比例。我们还采用协方差分析和邦费罗尼事后检验来研究四种文化背景之间报告卡分数的差异。显著性水平设定为<0.05。
四种文化背景下报告卡的总体平均等级为“B-”（良好），范围从“C+”（新加坡和美国）到“B-”（澳大利亚和中国香港）。儿童饮食行为的平均等级被归类为中等（“C-”），而所有文化背景下FHFEs的平均等级被归类为良好（“B+”）。对报告卡总体分数的比较显示，澳大利亚的报告卡分数显著高于新加坡和美国，而中国香港的分数显著高于新加坡。
《国际健康饮食报告卡》概述了不同文化背景下健康饮食的流行情况。我们认为，《国际健康饮食报告卡》可能为促进幼儿健康饮食的干预措施提供新的视角。
