Children's food patterns--a review: II. Family and group behavior.

Several themes have been presented in this review of research on children's food habits. Even though each of these themes helps advance the study of children's food behavior, how are the findings related and how does the nutritionist apply the findings in education programs? A theoretical model is needed that can be used with families anywhere in the world--those that have problems feeding children, as well as those that do not. The model should also provide solutions for many problems of food behavior and help nutritionists decide on alternatives for nutrition education programs. Such a model would adapt the themes presented in this article into conceptual abstractions with cross-cultural utility in explaining how food habits change. For example, many of the themes in this article could represent family solidarity (e.g., cooperation, communication, cohesiveness, and organization) (32, 70, 77, 126). Familiarity, adult and peer models, positive reinforcement, discipline, parent-child stimulation, family organization, and parental relationships suggest different ways to measure the family situation. In other words, each of these themes illustrates ways to develop cultural specific measure of one concept--family solidarity (32). In the information-processing model, family solidarity is considered the influencing variable to explain food habits (32). By this model, just presenting information does not guarantee its use. Rather, the use of nutrition information depends on the family situation. If family members share information and decide to use it, then food problems will be solved.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)