The boundaries of social class and reflections within the family: A relational analysis of nutritional behaviors in children

This research critically assesses the patterns of attitudes and behaviors surrounding children's nutritional practices, grounded in familial relations shaped by class position. Employing the transformative sequential mixed methods design principle, surveys were administered to parents and children, followed by the elucidation of findings through in-depth interviews with the same groups. Quantitative data derived from the Demographic Information Form, Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ), and Ana Baba Tutum Ölçeği (ABTÖ) were analyzed and visualized using the R programming language, version 2023.09.1+494, while qualitative data analysis was completed with Maxqda Analytics Pro versions 2023 and 2024. Ultimately, the structural categories of family, parenthood, and childhood were examined in depth; class-based differences in the meaning attributed to nutrition and the interrelations of these differences were explored. The findings indicate that parents' perceived responsibility towards their children's nutrition, the frequency of monitoring, concerns about weight, and dimensions of restriction and pressure to eat vary according to socioeconomic levels. Parents, experiencing a conflict between intrinsic importance and loss of control, display behavior that either reproduces certain standards, sets of behavior, social norms, pressures, and expectations, or avoids patterns experienced in their own childhood nutrition. This entire process mutually shapes the child's attitudes, preferences, and strategies for expression, acceptance, and refusal. The forms of socialization and sharing, structured within the scope of resources and opportunities related to nutritional knowledge sources, vary according to class position, altering the quality of the parent-child relationship in the context of nutritional processes.