| Abstract |
Introduction: Nutrition is a factor that contributes decisively to shaping human health. According to international studies, parental feeding practices can have a significant impact on the quality of a child's diet and weight gain. The adoption of healthy eating habits in children, leads to positive health results leading to improved public health.
Aim: The aim of this master's thesis is to study the attitudes and perceptions of parents and their environmental factors that are related to their children's eating habits and may affect their health.
Material and Method: The type of research is an observational study. The research took place in the Paediatric Clinics of the Agia Varvara Health Center and the 4th Local Health Unit of Heraklion. For the data collection, a questionnaire was given, containing closed and open-ended questions, to the parents of children and adolescents who visited the selected clinics and had Crete as their permanent residence. Data analysis was performed using IBM SPSS 26.0. Frequent assessments of the descriptive characteristics, health, hospitality, and eating habits of the 107 parents and their children who participated in the study followed. For the comparison of frequency distributions or position measures, 95% confidence intervals (95% Cl) estimated by bootstrap techniques were calculated, respectively. The shape of the distributions of a) Index of conformity to the Mediterranean diet (questionnaire KidMed) children Rating (0-100) and b) 6 subsections concerning the eating habits of children, the food consumption and the behavior of parents, tested whether through Blom method (QQplot). Followed by univariate their correlation with the non-parametric method of Spearman, both among themselves and with respect to the characteristics of parents and children. Finally, through hierarchical multiple linear regression models tested the possible dependence of Compliance Index in Mediterranean Diet with the parent and child characteristics (one the model) and the total score habits and food consumption (2 the model). An acceptable significance level of 0.05 was set.
Results: The overall score of habits and food consumption as stated by the parents who participated in the research was found to be moderate to high with an average value of 74.3. The scores of the Mediterranean Diet Compliance Index (KidMed questionnaire) of the children in the study were found to be moderate to high or with a score of 67.8 (± 12.9) (on a scale of 0-100). The majority of children followed a moderate quality diet (54.2%), while 40.2% of the children followed an excellent quality diet. The compliance index to the Mediterranean diet significantly associated with the consumption of fruits and vegetables (last month) of children who participated in the study ( rho = 0,432, p <0 , 001) , the younger children of the study ( rho = -0,303 , p = 0.001), the highest educational level of the mother ( rho = 0.239, p = 0.013) and the fewest hours of sedentary life / activity of the child ( rho = -0 , 239, p = 0.013) where they result from the one- factor correlations but and with the overall rating of habits and food consumption (β = 0.25, p = 0.016) , as found by the multifactorial models . No correlation was found between the Mediterranean Diet Compliance Index and the place of residence of the children and the financial level of the parents who participated in the study. Parents' buying behavior and food preparation habits have no statistically significant correlation with either children's fruit and vegetable consumption or the Mediterranean Diet Compliance Index. However, a relatively high percentage of participating parents were unaware of the environmental footprint of the food.
Conclusions: The parents of children aged 2 to 16 years, in the prefecture of Heraklion, Crete, it was found that their children follow the Mediterranean Diet at moderate to high levels. In addition, the Mediterranean Diet Compliance Index was significantly associated with the younger ages of the children in the study, the higher educational level of the mother and the fewer hours of sedentary activity of the child, while no statistically significant correlations were found with the children's place of residence and financial level of their parents.
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Στάσεις, αντιλήψεις γονέων και παράγοντες που σχετίζονται με τις διατροφικές συνήθειες παιδιών και εφήβων στην Κρήτη : μια περιγραφική μελέτη
