Table 3:

Food parenting constructs and associated quotes

Food parenting construct, themes	Example quote
Coercive control
Bribes, threats, or tricks	If he puts up a huge fight, then we usually say, “Well, if you don’t have one bite, if you don’t at least try it, you’re not going to get a treat after dinner.”
Pressure-to-eat	Then she’ll eat a couple bites, and she’s like, “Okay, can I be done?” “No, you can’t be done, you have to finish your [whole] plate.”
Restriction	The only thing we would like try and restrict is if it’s like a dessert or something like that, or sometimes we would restrict fruit because she eats so much of it.
Using food to control behavior	She usually throws a little fit, and I’ll give her something just little to hold her over.
Autonomy Support
Reasoning	I tell them that, you know, it’s healthy, and you need these nutrients, or, you know, protein and carbs and vegetables and everything, you know, for your body to feel good.
Negotiation	And if it’s something where it’s at dinnertime and he ate all of his grapes and nothing else, then we might say, “Well, before you have more grapes, you need to have a little bit more of this other stuff and then you can have more grapes.”
Encouragement	I always try to encourage them to at least take two bites, and if they don’t like it, then you know that you don’t like it. Just because you see it and you think you don’t like it doesn’t mean you don’t, and so I’ll encourage them to take at least two bites.
Child involvement	I would say maybe one meal out of the day, you know, they’re helping — where it’s like at breakfast, they go out and they pick out a granola bar from the drawer and put it on their plate, or they can pick out the fruit cup and put it on their plate.
Structure
Rules and Limits	I mean, he knows where like his snacks and his treats are, and he may just go grab something, but he knows he can’t have it without asking.
Schedule and Routine	I don’t know, consistency seems to work the best for little kids in our experience, and we’re not good at that with a lot of things, but I feel like with meals we are. So during the week — on the weekend, we try to keep it as consistent as we can on the weekend.
Monitoring	Typically if I feel like it’s an important group that we haven’t gotten much of, so say we haven’t had veggies all day, so I usually try to introduce some veggies at both like lunch and dinner or snack time and dinner, so there’s a couple of opportunities and she’s not forced to do it all at once.
Guided Choices	For breakfast we have — it’s usually — there’s usually four options. It’s usually the same every day. She can choose oatmeal, yogurt, waffle or toast.
Food accessibility and availability	Well, I feel I have a little control over what he eats, because I do the shopping and provide the food. So if I don’t buy it, he doesn’t have it when I’m with him. We always have fruit on the table. There’s usually always yogurt in the fridge, other things they can get. There are usually always granola bars or cereal bars, as well as the normal Goldfish crackers, Cheez-Its, once in a while like fruit snacks and that sort of thing. There’s always a couple of cupboards they can reach now, and they can, well, get into the refrigerator quite easily.
Anticipatory Catering, Indulgence	And I only buy what he likes. And I really only feed him and them, all of them, what they like, and I don’t make them eat anything that they don’t want.