Socio-cognitive barriers to healthy eating among mothers: A segmentation analysis in Argentina, France, and Denmark

Abstract

The prevalence of childhood obesity has increased at an alarming rate despite several actions to reverse this trend. It is important to focus on tackling the constraints for healthy food provisioning. We focus on identifying segments of mothers in relation to factors acting as barriers to healthy eating. Five hundred mothers in each country (Argentina, France and Denmark) completed an online survey. In each of the three countries, four segments are identified, varying mostly on working and socio-economic status, self-efficacy and attitudes to health experts. Segments of mothers who are skeptical to nutrition advice from health professionals were identified. Another important finding is that staying-at-home mothers might face more barriers to healthy eating than mothers who work outside the home. We provide suggestions for targeted interventions addressing healthy eating behaviors among mothers with different profiles.

Acknowledgements

The authors thankfully acknowledge the researchers who helped with the questionnaire translation: Gastón Ares and Leticia Vidal (Spanish), Sylvie Issanchou and Maartje Mulders (French). We also thank Pernille Nørgaard Videbaek and Violeta Stancu for the help with the analysis in Latent Gold, and Merete Elmann for the final language check of the article. Finally, we thank the Editor in Chief, Dr. Covan, and the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript.

Authors’ contributions

All authors conceptualized and contributed to the design of the study and were equally involved in the development of the survey. AFM collected and interpreted the data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript with contributions and substantial review from JAW. Both authors critically commented on subsequent versions of the article and have read and approved the final manuscript.

Availability of data and materials

Some of the data generated during this study are included in the article and its supplementary information file. Further datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by Aarhus University’s ethics committee (serial number: 2019-28).

Additional information

Funding

The study was conducted as part of the project “Edulia-Bringing down barriers to children’s healthy eating,” which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 764985.