Children’s nutrition from the perspective of parents: A qualitative research

Abstract

This article presents the research results of a qualitative study on children’s nutrition from the perspective of parents. The research question I started from was the following: In what way do parents contribute to the construction of their children’s food consumption behaviors? In order to answer this question, I used a qualitative survey based on 20 interviews conducted using the semi-structured interview technique (Kauffman, 2008). Therefore, in the following, I will analyze in detail the themes that constitute the symbolic universe of parents regarding children’s food consumption, as I discovered them following the research interviews. Likewise, each thematic category will be theoretically anchored with the aim of building a sociological explanation both for the way parents construct their representation of children’s food consumption, and for the existence of their food consumption practices.