Taking a long view in understanding children and young people's diets

Given that social policies seek to influence behaviour, government is concerned to understand how behaviour changes over time. Parental employment and family food practices are central to public policy concerns about individual and community wellbeing. Whilst food and eating practices are typically habitual, they can change in response to expected and unexpected transitions and interventions. They may also play a part in coping with change. Changes in parental employment, family income, and life events such as the birth of a child, school transfer or family breakdown are examples of possible influences on the eating habits of children and families.

But while we know that children's food intake impacts upon later life chances and that food and eating practices change over the life course, not enough is known about the processes of change. For example, how change comes about or the role that children themselves or different environments play. Following children and their families over time and using a mixed methods approach offers the possibility of developing a better and more realistic understanding of how and why individuals and communities live - and eat - as they do as well as what the intended and unintended consequences of policies themselves might be.

Although there is currently interest in linking quantitative and qualitative data, it has been noted that there is little suitable data which might permit effective linkage in this area. The Food Practices and Working Families study provides a unique opportunity to take a longitudinal mixed methods approach, offering as it does data from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey (NDNS) and a sample of working parents and their children also drawn from the NDNS. The study, which is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and Department of Health until October 2011, takes a multi-method approach, including secondary analysis of the NDNS and other large datasets and in-depth interviews with 48 children and their parents to consider how parental employment shapes eating habits and the diets of young children and the role different settings and children themselves play.

A follow-up in-depth interview study with the families who took part in the Food Practices and Working Families Study will be carried out to gain further understandings of how children and young people eat; the contexts in their lives in which they eat; and the particular transitions and experiences that children and parents encounter over time; and how these shape changes in their food practices, preferences and diets. Further secondary analysis of two new waves of the NDNS cross-sectional data will also be undertaken to consider changes over time and how family meal patterns relate to socio demographic factors and age of child. The findings will help to inform policies concerned with childhood obesity, healthy lifestyles, and children's wellbeing. Through its innovative methodology, linking mixed methods research to a national survey, the study also seeks to contribute to furthering the exploitation of quantitative longitudinal data resources.

Who will benefit from this research?

Key target audiences include:
*Academic beneficiaries - the scientific communities of the sociological and related disciplines, biomedical and nutritional sciences

Public authorities including

*Government policy makers which have as their focus nutrition (DH), children (DfE), employment (BIS and DWP) and research funding (ESRC)
*NGOs which have as their focus:
*Children and families, e.g. National Children's Bureau, Family and Parenting Institute; MumsNet;
*Nutrition - FSA/DH and Social Science Research Committee;
*Child nutrition e.g. Caroline Walker Trust; School Food Trust;
*Work/life balance e.g. Work Foundation, TUC;
*Working parent interest groups. e.g. Workingfamilies.org;
*Childcare, e.g. Daycare Trust, National Childminding Association (NCMA);
*Practitioners - community health visitors, school nurses and their professional bodies (e.g. Trades Unions, NCMA)
*Food industry (e.g. Morrison's, Birds Eye)
*The mass media
*The general public
*Participants in the qualitative study

A database of contacts in each of these target groups will be set up and maintained for the duration of the project.

1. How will they benefit from this research?
The proposed research will provide further understandings of how children and young people eat and examine some of the contexts in their lives when they make changes in their food practices, preferences and diets. This will help to inform policies concerned with childhood obesity, healthy lifestyles, and children's well-being and findings therefore have the potential to impact upon the nation's health by enhancing the effectiveness of public services and policy concerned with health. It also has the potential to impact economically. The innovative methodology of the study, in which longitudinal qualitative research is linked to a national survey, may also contribute to the development of future linkages of qualitative research to the UK's national cohort studies and Understanding Society. In this way, the proposed study also seeks to contribute to furthering the exploitation of Britain's world leading quantitative longitudinal data resources.

Whilst a majority of research beneficiaries is liable only to be involved in the second stage (dissemination), these groups include those who may be invited to engage in dialogue at the stage of communication work on early findings in order to develop thinking about their application. They may also in turn be recipients of the communication of interim and final results. One of the aims of the first stage of engagement (closed seminar) will be to identify the specific information requirements of target audiences. The contribution of the Advisory Group will also be harnessed for this purpose.

Audiences' information needs involve issues about content and length but also the mode of communication. A range of means of engagement is to be employed in combinations aiming to optimise accessibility, ease of use and storage and that are also cost effective to create, maintain and update as necessary. These will include: (a) Face to face events aimed at initiating and maintaining a dialogue will include an Advisory Group (AG); a closed seminar (May 2013); National/International Conferences; and an open seminar (September 2013) (b) Dissemination tools aimed at communicating research findings will include a study website; newsletters; single page summaries; summaries on (external and internal) websites; and scientific communications (articles in peer reviewed journals aimed at practitioners and academics).