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ERIC Number: EJ1299416
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2021-Jul
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1082-3301
EISSN: N/A
Tough Love or Laissez-Faire? Exploring the Feeding Styles of Urban Preschool Teachers and Associations with Nutrition-Focused Professional Development
Cooper, Christen Cupples
Early Childhood Education Journal, v49 n4 p647-656 Jul 2021
The majority of children aged three to five in the U.S. attend childcare or preschool, where they may consume up to two-thirds of their daily calories and nutrition. Teachers at preschools serving low-income families are responsible for guiding children in their food choices. Feeding style, or caregivers' overall emotional tone and approach at mealtimes, is believed to influence children's food choices and acceptance. While there is some research on parent feeding styles, there is little on preschool teachers' feeding styles. This causal-comparative study, using the Caregiver Feeding Style Questionnaire, examined the feeding styles of 660 teachers at New York City preschools serving low-income families, comparing feeding styles of teachers at preschools who received Eat Well Play Hard in Child Care Settings (EWPH) professional development (school response rate 90.4%) and those at preschools that did not (57.1%). Descriptive statistics, ANOVAs and Chi-Square tests were performed. Feeding styles were calculated using a typological method. Teachers evenly spanned the four feeding style categories: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved. There was no significant relationship between race/ethnicity and feeding style. However, there were significant associations between years of teaching and whether teachers were parents and feeding style. EWPH training was not associated with feeding style. Professional development interventions may more effectively target specific nutrition-related beliefs and practices than the broader concept of feeding styles, which, as prior research suggests, may remain mostly static over time.
Springer. Available from: Springer Nature. One New York Plaza, Suite 4600, New York, NY 10004. Tel: 800-777-4643; Tel: 212-460-1500; Fax: 212-460-1700; e-mail: customerservice@springernature.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2123/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Early Childhood Education; Preschool Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: New York (New York)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A