Textured Food Introduction Information and Parental Feeding Practices

Institut National de Recherche pour l'Agriculture, l'Alimentation et l'Environnement64 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to conduct an intervention with 60 parents of 8 months old children to test the effect of recommendations, compared to usual care, promoting the introduction of textured foods between 8 and 15 months on parental practices of use of textured foods and the effect of such practices on children acceptance for a variety of textured foods.

The intervention tests the effect of providing parents with recommendations on textured food introduction between 8 and 15 months on their practices of offering of textured foods and their child's acceptance of textured foods. The intervention consists of advice and tips on the why and how introducing textured food during complementary feeding, which were not address in French national guidelines (Programme National Nutrition Santé (PNNS)) at the start of the study. Advise were developped from current literature knowledge and recommendations in other countries. They are accompanied with monthly counselling via phone calls by dietician and two baskets containing food preparation utensils and commercial textured foods. The intervention group (n=30) benefits from this intervention. The control group (n=30) receive general information on healthy eating provided by the food guides of the PNNS, phone calls collecting general information and 2 baskets containing baby gifts. Acceptance is evaluated experimentally pre and post intervention in a laboratory setting evaluating children swallowing foods of different textures.

Study Type

INTERVENTIONAL

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

BASIC_SCIENCE

Masking

DOUBLE

Enrollment

Conditions

Feeding Practices Food Acceptance

Interventions

Counselling on textured food introduction between 8 and 15 monthsBEHAVIORAL

Intervention program : Advice and tips on the why and how introducing textured food during complementary feeding are grouped in a booklet and provided to participants. Monthly counselling via phone call by a dietician (at 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 14 months) and two baskets containing food preparation utensils and commercial textured foods provided at 8 and 12 months. Usual care : reflects the standard information provided within French national guidelines (PNNS). Two phone calls at 9 and 13 months. If questions are raised by parents, dieticians will restrict their responses based on the food guides of the PNNS. Two gift boxes containing presents for the child of same financial value as those provided to intervention group, provided at 8 and 12 months.

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 1 MonthMax age: 7 MonthsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria: * parents ages ≥ 18 years old * children born full term (≥37 weeks) and with weight ≥2500 g * children introduced to complementary feeding after 4 months and before 6 months Exclusion Criteria: * children with episode of tube feedings, chronic disease, allergy and gastroesophageal reflux requiring medication * children introduced to complementary feeding with baby-led weaning method * children already involved in another study on eating behaviour

Locations (1)

Centre des Sciences du Goût et de l'Alimentation

Dijon, France

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Food texture exposure score

Food texture introduction assessed using a questionnaire developed to characterize the pattern of food texture exposure in French children aged 4-36 months (Demonteil et al., 2018). This questionnaire is composed of 188 items representing 61 foods commonly used in France in different texture combinations (puree, pieces, raw, cooked, etc.). Each food-texture combination present in the questionnaire is classified into one of three texture levels: 'purees' (soft and rough; T1 texture level), 'small/soft pieces' (T2 texture level) and 'hard/big pieces and double texture' (T3 texture level) . The number of introduced items is evaluated for each texture level (T1, T2 and T3), and a global child exposure score (TexExp) is calculated from the sum of all introduced items.

Time frame: End of intervention (15 months)

Textured food acceptance: scale

Food texture acceptance is assessed during lab experiments. At each age, children participate in two experimental sessions in which they are offered several foods varying in texture. For each age, for a given child, the two sessions are planned during the same week. During one session, four different foods are offered to the child. Three trials of each food is run, trial offering is stopped after three consecutive refusals is emitted by the child. Experimenter evaluate whether the child swallow the trial. Acceptance is determined for each food as % of trial swallowed. Global acceptance outcome is calculated as the sum of frequency observed for each food. Parents evaluate the infant's liking of the food on a linear scale for each food trial. At the end of intervention, acceptance for 2 commercial baby food products is assessed by parents in home-setting. The parent records the weight of food eaten (g) and children 's liking of this food on a 9 point scale.

Time frame: Pre and post intervention (8 and 15 months)

Secondary Outcomes

Other maternal feeding practices

At the end of intervention, parents report if they search for information on texture introduction during the study. The type of foods offered (home-made or commercial foods), sharing meal with family and their motivation when buying food is assessed using dedicated questionnaires. A post-intervention interviews, organized after the end of the study allow to debrief with participants on their study participation.

Data from ClinicalTrials.gov

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