Associations between the home environment and children's sweet beverage consumption at 2-year follow-up: the 'Be active, eat right' study

Summary Background This study evaluates the association between home environmental characteristics and sweet beverage consumption (i.e. beverages that contain sugar) of 7‐year‐old children. Methods The population for analysis consisted of n = 2047 parents and their children from the population‐based ‘Be active, eat right’ study. Data on sociodemographic characteristics, parental beliefs, parenting practices and child's sweet beverage consumption were obtained by parental report with questionnaires. We performed linear and multinomial regression analyses evaluating associations between characteristics at age 5 years and (i) consumption at 7 years and (ii) consumption patterns between age 5 and 7 years with reference category ‘low consumption’. Results Based on the report from their parents, 5‐year‐old children drank on average 3.0 (SD:1.4) sweet beverage per day. Children consumed less sweet beverages at age 7 years (beta −0.16, 95% confidence interval [CI] −0.24 to −0.09) when there were less sweet beverages available at home. The multinomial regression model showed that children with parents who discouraged sweet beverage consumption were more likely to decrease their sweet beverage consumption over the study period (odds ratio: 1.24, 95% CI 1.07 to 1.43). Moreover, when there were less sweet beverages available at home, children were less likely to increase their consumption or have a high consumption over the study period (odds ratio: 0.70, 95% CI 0.59 to 0.83 and 0.61, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.70, respectively). Conclusions The results showed that characteristics of the home environment are associated with the consumption of sweet beverages among children. Specifically, the availability of sweet beverages at home is associated with the child's sweet beverage consumption.