[An examination of relevant factors attributable to child health, food behavior, and lifestyle concerns of parents with infants aged at least 18 months: With a view to expanding into Shokuiku (food and nutrition education)].

Objectives　This study focused on food after weaning and examined the children's diet and home environmental factors that influence parents' concerns during health checkup for infants (aged 1.6 and 3 years).Methods　In the analysis, 646 participants, excluding invalid responses, who cooperated with the survey during health checkup for 1.6- and 3-year-old in the Tohoku, Chubu, and Chugoku regions from March 2019 to January 2020, were included. The survey included 56 items of dietary, lifestyle, and health concerns (yes/no answers), child attributes, and frequency of food intake (six options, 18 types). Concern factors were extracted by factor analysis. The association between the worry scores and each factor was analyzed.Results　The 1.6- and 3-year-olds were associated with high scores for (health awareness and lifestyle) and low fruit intake, high salty snacks intake, and low subjective economic status, high scores for (diet content and atmosphere) and low intakes of carotene-rich vegetables, other vegetables, seaweed, and fruits, high scores for (interest and motivation in food) and low carotene-rich vegetables intake, high scores for (food experience and behavior) and high cereals (bread) intake, low subjective economic status. The 3-year-olds were associated with high scores and being boys.Conclusion　We extracted four worry factors that parents with children after the weaning period have and clarified the factors related to each factor and group characteristics.

Gap between the concerns of healthcare professionals and parents' perceptions regarding dietary habits for 18-month- and 3-year-old children in Japan.

BACKGROUND: A gap has been reported between healthcare professionals' (hereafter "professionals") recognition of preschool children's diets and parents' perception of concern. This study investigated the gap between the concerns reported by professionals and parents' perceptions regarding health and dietary habits by age (18 months and 3 years) and gender in Japan. METHODS: The study design consisted of a cross-sectional, multilevel survey. The request letters were sent to all households with target children with the cooperation of local governments. After obtaining written informed consent from parents, questionnaires were distributed to them. The survey included 30 items on children's concerns about health and dietary habits. At the health checkup, parents indicated whether they were concerned in response to each item, and responded child's height and weight and birth height and weight. Next, the professionals provided counseling to the parents at a health checkup. After that, the professionals noted their concerns in response to the same 30 items as those given to parents. The participation rates were 82.9% (18 months) and 82.8% (3 years). Data of 239 persons for 18 months and 223 persons for 3 years old were analyzed. In the statistical analysis, the items that were judged as concerning by professionals but not by parents were identified; likewise, the items that were of concern to parents but not to professionals were identified. Sensitivity, false negative rate, specificity, false positive rate, and Youden index were calculated to analyze the discordance rate for each item. RESULTS: Many parents in this study were concerned about the issues that professionals did not consider to be concerning. Moreover, the parents worried about more issues for 3-year-olds than for 18-month-olds. The items for which ≥ 10 professionals indicated concerns and with higher discordance between the professionals and parents for both boys and girls were "picky eating" for 18-month-olds and "inconsistent amount of food" for 3-year-olds. CONCLUSIONS: The concerns that professionals have with respect to children's diets and the things that parents worry about show gaps. It might be necessary to provide professional counseling for parents to develop a correct understanding of their children's dietary habits.

Multi-professional meetings on health checks and communication in providing nutritional guidance for infants and toddlers in Japan: a cross-sectional, national survey-based study.

BACKGROUND: Health personnel must provide continuous support in response to problematic results from health checks of infants and toddlers (hereinafter "infant[s]"). Among this support, it is important for health personnel to provide nutritional guidance to families as a collaborative effort between the staff from multiple disciplines and community organizations. This study aimed to clarify the factors affecting collaboration with community organizations in providing nutritional guidance to families following health checks for infants in Japan. METHODS: The design of this study consisted of a cross-sectional, multilevel survey. A self-administered questionnaire was mailed to all municipalities (1741 towns and cities) in Japan to be completed by the person responsible for nutrition advice. The research was performed in August 2015. We obtained 988 valid responses (response rate of 56.7%). To identify the factors that affect the collaboration with community organizations in providing nutritional guidance, we determined how municipalities responded to infants needing support (five items), how municipalities evaluated health guidance (five items), the number of distributed maternal and child health handbooks, and the number of infants who received follow-up evaluations. RESULTS: The results of multivariate analyses showed that the factors related to successful community collaboration in providing nutritional guidance included holding a multi-professional staff meeting after health checks (post-conference; odds ratio [OR], 2.34; P = 0.001); following up children suspected of having developmental and mental disabilities or delays before entering elementary school (OR, 1.77; P = 0.0004); and considering dental caries data from dental checkups in providing health guidance (OR, 1.56; P = 0.003). CONCLUSIONS: Holding a multi-professional meeting after infant health checks (post-conference) was strongly associated with community collaboration in providing nutritional guidance for infants.