How tensions between parents’ values influence decisions about their children’s nutrition: a qualitative study in disadvantaged neighbourhoods

TL;DR

This study explores how parents in disadvantaged areas struggle with nutrition decisions due to conflicting values like child health and convenience.

Contribution

The study identifies six key value tensions and how stressors and protective factors influence nutrition decisions in disadvantaged neighborhoods.

Findings

Parents face tensions between child dietary health and child enjoyment, convenience, and parent well-being.

Stressors like child behavior and lack of social support trigger these tensions.

Protective factors like social and material support help mitigate the impact of these tensions.

Abstract

Parents feel a responsibility to provide a healthy start for their young children, but struggle to realise this. Especially in disadvantaged neighbourhoods, parents face challenges such as financial strain, stress, and isolation. Facing these challenges can contribute to tensions between parents’ values, such as balancing family harmony with healthy food choices. Such value tensions may negatively affect the nutrition decisions parents make for their children. Nutrition interventions often fail to address these value tensions, which contributes to their relatively low uptake and impact. By understanding the tensions parents face between their values, the present research offers recommendations for future nutrition interventions to encourage healthy nutrition decisions in disadvantaged situations.

We conducted a qualitative interview study using semi-structured interviews with 20 parents of children aged zero to four years, living in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Transcripts were analysed inductively to identify value tensions, stressors that trigger them, and protective factors that mitigate their impact.

Six key value tensions parents experienced regarding nutrition were identified, which emerged in situations involving, for example, stress, low income, or limited social support. The three most common tensions included balancing the value of the dietary health of the child with the values of enjoyment of the child, convenience for the parent, and well-being of the parent. Our analyses showed that the value tensions were triggered by specific stressors, such as challenging child behaviour, unhealthy food provided by friends or family, and lack of me-time for the parent. The participants reported relief from stressors and the resulting value tensions by relying on protective factors such as social and material support, including informal household support and access to healthy, convenient foods.

This study provides insights into how value tensions, stressors, and protective factors influence parents’ nutrition decisions for their children. By addressing these value tensions, alongside other influences such as structural barriers, nutrition interventions may become more fitting and motivating for parents within their specific contexts. In addition to general recommendations on value-based intervention design, our findings offer specific guidance for developing tailored nutrition interventions for families in disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-025-02712-y.