ABSTRACT
Maternal influences on children's diet have been widely studied, while paternal and household frameworks require further research. This study aimed to evaluate how individual, socioeconomic and household characteristics at birth and 7 years (y) impact children's fruit and vegetable (FV) and energy-dense foods (EDF) intake at 10y, distinguishing maternal and paternal effects. The sample included 2750 children evaluated at 7 and 10y in the Portuguese birth cohort Generation XXI. The children's food intake was assessed through a Food Frequency Questionnaire at both ages, where 4 food groups were defined: FV, 'Sweet foods', 'Salty snacks', and 'Soft drinks'. The associations between food intake at 7y, parents' and children's characteristics, and food intake at 10y were evaluated via binary logistic regression models. Offspring of older mothers with higher age and education, who live with siblings and had higher family income were likelier to have 5 servings of FV daily at 10y. Children eating 5 portions/day of FV at 7y had higher odds of keeping this pattern at 10y. Higher maternal age and education, and father's education decreased the odds of having soft drinks daily at 10y. Higher family income was linked with lower odds of weekly salty snacks and daily sweet foods at 10y. In conclusion, parental education, maternal age, living with siblings, and higher family income influenced children's FV and EDF intake at 10y. Mothers' effects appear to impact children's food intake more than fathers'.
ABSTRACT
The Satisfaction with Family Life Scale (SWFLS) is a measure of a person's satisfaction with their family life as a whole that has been used in different cultural contexts. However, its internal structure and factorial invariance have not been investigated simultaneously in culturally different samples from America and Europe. The current study aims to evaluate the internal structure and factorial invariance of the SWLFS in adolescents from Peru and Portugal, through a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis. The study was conducted on 439 adolescents from Peru (N = 232; Ageaverage = 15.50, S.D. = 0.65) and Portugal (N = 207; Ageaverage = 16.16, S.D. = 0.81). First, the confirmatory factorial analysis for each group was carried out, followed by the multi-group confirmatory factorial analyses. Results indicated that the one-factor structure of the SWLFS presents a good adjustment to the data, in addition to an adequate internal consistency. Moreover, the presence of configural, metric, scalar and strict invariance is demonstrated across culturally different samples. The SWFLS is a brief and valid measure of satisfaction with family life that is useful for intercultural comparisons between samples of adolescents from Peru and Portugal.
