Groups of mothers based on feeding practices and their associations with dietary quality of pre-school children: A latent profile analysis

Parents' feeding practices are associated with children's food intake. However, little is known about the patterns of feeding practices used by groups of mothers or how these groupings of practices influence children's dietary intake. Therefore, the aims of this study are to classify and describe groups of mothers according to their patterns of feeding practices and to examine the associations between the groups of maternal feeding practices and preschool children's dietary quality. In 2018, 1349 mothers based in Australia of children aged 2-5 years completed an online survey including validated measures of nine feeding practices and dietary quality, measured using thirteen summed dietary items. Latent profile analysis was used to identify distinct groups of mothers who shared similar feeding practices. Linear regression models were fitted to examine associations between the feeding practice profiles and child dietary quality. A three-profile model was chosen based on interpretation, profile size and statistical model fit criteria. Profile 1 had lower mean scores of structure-related feeding practices than the other profiles; profile 2 had mean scores reflecting slightly higher use of most structure-related feeding practices and lower mean scores of some nonresponsive feeding practices; profile 3 had higher mean scores of non-responsive feeding practices than the other profiles. Profile 1 (-2.95, CI: 3.97;-1.92) and profile 3 (-2.81, CI: 3.49;-2.13) had lower mean child dietary quality scores compared with profile 2. Profile 2, which reflected the most engagement in structure-related feeding practices combined with least nonresponsive feeding practices, was associated with higher child diet quality, compared with the other two profiles. The identification of these unique profiles could help to tailor future interventions to consider patterns of feeding practices used by groups of mothers.