Parenting Style, Parental Feeding Practices and Children's Nutritional Status in Authoritative Parenting Style Model: A Structural Equation Modeling

Background: The increasing prevalence of overweight and obesity in children has posed some challenges in many countries. There is a relationship between parenting styles, parental feeding practices, and children's nutritional status. Objectives: This study aimed to apply Authoritative Parenting style Model in children's nutritional status. Methods: This research was a cross-sectional study conducted on 1000 parents selected by random cluster sampling. Parents who had primary school children aged 7-8 years in Bojnord, Iran, completed questionnaires related to the constructs of the model in 2016. Structural Equation Model Model (SEM) analysis was used to test the fit of the model. CMIN/DF, GFI, IFI, CFI, PGFI, PNFI, and RMSEA indices were employed to check the goodness-of-fit. Results: Correctly completed questionnaires were collected from 294 dyads of parents. The mean age was 36.26 years (SD = +/- 5.38) in fathers and 32.96 years (SD = +/- 4.88) in mothers. 232 mothers (80.5 %) were housewives and only 99 of them (34.4%) had university education. Most fathers were employee (115, 40%) or self-employed (111, 38.5%) and 120 of them (41.7%) had university education. The values of goodness-of-fit were obtained for CMIN/DF = 4.6, GFI = 0.91, CFI = 0.93, IFI = 0.92, PGFI = 0.68, PNFI = 0.77, and RMSEA = 0.07. Nutritional knowledge and attitude directly affected authoritative parenting style (beta = 0.21, P<0.001) andparental feeding practices (beta = 0.33, P < 0.001) and indirectly affected children's nutritional status (beta = -0.01). The authoritative parenting style construct had a direct effect on feeding practices of parents (beta = 0.54, P < 0.001) and an indirect effect on children's nutritional status (beta = -0.01). The feeding practices of parents construct also affected the children's nutritional status directly (beta = -0.02, P < 0.05). Conclusions: This study indicated that the use of this model in the children's nutritional status can result in positive outcomes, and this model can make interventions more effective in this regard.