In my last blog, I listed some of the main reasons parents can’t and won’t cook at home, including having picky eaters at home. However, as childhood overweight and obesity skyrocket in Australia,¹ Europe,² and America,³ cooking at home can become a tool to improve diets and health. The reason is that home-cooked meals are often healthier and more nutritious than takeout and frozen meals,^4–6 which are usually laden with sugars, salts, and unhealthy fats.⁶

 

In this article, I’m going to explore some of the solutions parents have come up with to remove their perceived hurdles to cooking at home, and I provide some tools and resources to help action these solutions. These parent-given solutions have been identified mainly through interviews and surveys. Whether they will work for most parents (depending on their demographics, geographic locations, and lifestyles) is likely to be answered by rigorous studies in the future. So here they are.

 

Solutions to tackle time constraints 

Let me start with the issue of insufficient time and fatigue.⁷ Parents often feel overwhelmed and exhausted by the number of work and other responsibilities they have each day. By the time dinnertime rolls around, they’re too spent to cook. Hence, some parents say they feel too "lazy" or unmotivated to cook.^8,9 Even breakfasts are challenging with time being a primary constraint, especially for working parents and children attending educational institutions.^10,11 Parents suggest three main strategies to combat time restraints: using cooking gadgets, cooking together, and meal planning and preparation.

 

1a. Using time-saving cooking gadgets

Using a slow cooker (crock pot) or air fryer can reduce preparation time while providing healthier meals.⁹ Compared to deep-fried foods, air fryers result in consuming significantly less fat and calories and create fewer carcinogenic compounds like acrylamide.¹² Nevertheless, the high heat levels used to cook with air fryers mean that other carcinogenic compounds, such as heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, may still form.¹² If you're wondering what these gadgets are, what to cook in them, and why they are beneficial, then try reading these articles about air fryers and slow cookers.* 

  

1b. Cooking together

Teaching children to prepare meals, and parents cooking together can spread the workload more evenly.^9,11,13 Cooking with parents helps children's development by teaching them eating habits that maintain health.^4,14 For example, research shows that learning to cook increases children's self-efficacy to eat fruit and vegetables while eating less fried foods and drinking fewer sugary drinks.^9,15 Additional benefits include children liking to cook as a means of spending more time with their parent(s), and children experiencing independence, ownership, pride and self-esteem even after a single meal prep!¹⁵

A great site to kickstart cooking with your children is Jamie Oliver’s cooking with kids YouTube videos. The videos teach kids how to prepare a variety of basic but yummy, child-friendly recipes with the chef being a child!

 

1c. Pre-planning and preparation

Instead of shopping and cooking daily, which can be time-consuming, proactive parents suggest planning and executing ahead of time. They say completing meal planning, grocery shopping and batch cooking (including freezing meals) on the weekends can reduce food preparation times during the week.⁹ Alternatively cooking enough food to have leftovers for the next night is a similar strategy.⁹

Pre-preparing elements of breakfast the night before or earlier can also save time and ensure everyone has breakfast. For example, parents suggest cutting up and refrigerating fruit, pre-boiling eggs, using microwave cups to cook eggs, and having pre-prepared foods like pancake batter.^10,11 or on-the-go options such as dry cereal, and yoghurt.¹¹ 

 

Solutions to tackle the high cost of healthy foods

Another barrier parents face in cooking at home is the high cost of healthy ingredients like fruits, vegetables and meats. This cost is a reality many families face post-Covid. But savvy parents offer solutions to tackle the higher cost of healthier foods including avoiding temptations and using different grocery channels. Health researchers also add a third strategy of avoiding food waste.

 

2a. Planning to avoid temptations

Parents note that planning the week's menu and using a shopping list helps them to stick to the grocery budget and avoid impulse shopping.⁹ This strategy makes a lot of sense because grocery stores are set up for consumers to buy impulsively. Everything from soft, ambient music to a comfortable store temperature aims to slow shoppers down while browsing through aisles so that they can spend as much as possible! Americans spent about $5400 annually on impulse purchases before the pandemic, and this increased by 18% during the pandemic.¹⁶ Other research showed that Australians who shopped for groceries online instead of browsing supermarket aisles saved on average $1300 a year.¹⁷ Therefore, buying based on needs and not wants reduces the food budget, avoids food waste, and is more environmentally friendly.¹⁸ To sum up, try shopping online using a shopping list.

 

2b. Where and how to buy to save money

Other strategies parents give to reduce their food budget are shopping at a Farmers' market¹⁴ (which is usually cheaper and has seasonal produce) or buying meal boxes (such as Hello Fresh⁹). A survey showed that one in five Australians used meal boxes and those who did, saved about $1505 a year as a result.¹⁷ Buying meal boxes has several benefits, including catering to varying dietary needs, providing nutritional information, meal inspiration and meal variation, reducing food waste, getting seasonal produce, and reducing shopping frequency and the temptation to buy more food.¹⁴ Unfortunately, meal boxes were only recommended by parents from higher socioeconomic segments while other parents disagreed with this strategy, noting that it is expensive, time-consuming, and not very child-friendly.^9,14 

However, a useful website that strikes a happy medium is the free LIVELIGHTER website, developed by the Cancer Council Western Australia. LIVELIGHTER allows the user to choose from a variety of healthy recipes to plan and design a menu for every night of the week (see family meal plans). It also gives the user a printable/shareable shopping list. So, LIVELIGHTER is like the commercial meal kits, except that it doesn't include ingredients delivery. The upside is that it is free and gives a healthy and affordable seven-dinner meal plan (not just five, which a lot of commercial meal boxes provide).

Solutions to tackle the confidence problem

A third barrier to cooking at home is that some parents don't have the confidence to plan and prepare meals. But parents also suggest that this problem can be overcome by the right information tools. 

 

3a. Access to tools

Parents note that their confidence to cook would improve if they have access to the right information tools. For example, having access to mobile apps that provide both healthy recipes and corresponding grocery lists, would help to increase meal/snack variations and inspirations, provide opportunities for more healthy eating, and make shopping easier.¹⁴ Social and traditional media are also noted as helpful ways to access healthy recipes.^14,19

Interestingly, an intervention study undertaken by health promotion researchers, showed that giving food skills training to parents improved parental culinary skills and nutrition knowledge. This training involved meal planning and preparation for weekly dinners, with the use of shopping lists.²⁰ Therefore, this strategy provided by parents may indeed prove to be helpful in future research.

Now, there is a mobile app available that can provide these benefits free of charge. This mobile app, developed by the University of Southern California, is evidence-based (which means it’s been tested and shown to help parents) and is called VeggieBook. VeggieBook helps with the "what to cook" and how to shop smart and can be downloaded from the iPhone or Samsung App stores. The app has two parts. One part, called the SecretBook, helps the user to get a variety of healthy meal and snack purchasing and preparation tips. The other part of the app is the Veggiebook. The Veggiebook section basically lists a number of vegetables. The user can select a vegetable they want to cook with and then the app guides them through a variety of questions to narrow down to recipes that are most suited to their needs. So typical questions, the app asks the user, are preferred cooking method(s), flavour(s) and meat(s), who will eat it (child, adult, or diabetic), whether the recipe is for storing or freezing etc. Give it a go, you may be pleasantly surprised. What makes this app so great is that the recipes are easy to make and some of them can be made in a very short time.

I also found a couple of great media resources to improve parents' skills and confidence to cook. The first is a video series by Joshua Weissman called Cheap and healthy meals for the week, done in 1 hour. In these YouTube videos, he slam-dunks a few goals of healthy recipes, time-saving, budget-friendly meal planning, and cooking skills! Personally, I would ensure the veggie servings fill three-quarters of a dinner plate and the protein (that is, meat/fish) portions are in line with the dietary guidelines for eating protein. 

The second social media resource is Jamie Oliver’s batch-cooking family recipes for more yummy and healthy meal ideas.

 

Solutions to tackle the 'picky eater' problem 

A final barrier parents presented to cooking at home is the food preferences of their picky eater child(ren). Many parents fret over how to ensure their children eat enough and eat healthily. Realistically though, it takes time, effort, and a variety of strategies, tools and resources to overcome picky eating in children. I have devoted an entire book to this topic in My kids love veggies! This book puts the science into conversational language for any parent to learn why, when and how to effectively intervene to change children's dietary behaviours. 

 

What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you have some great solutions for the barriers parents give? Join the conversation on Facebook at Parenting for healthy eating and share your thoughts. 

 

Note: * I don’t drink so I substitute wine in recipes with healthier options given by healthline. 

 

References

1.         Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. A framework for monitoring overweight and obesity in Australia [Internet]. 2020 Aug [cited 2023 Jan 1]. Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/overweight-obesity/a-framework-for-monitoring-overweight-and-obesity/summary

2.         World Health Organization. WHO Childhood obesity in European Region remains high- new WHO report presents latest country data [Internet]. 2022 Nov. (Childhood Obesity Surveillance Initiative (COSI) report (5th in the series)). Available from: https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/08-11-2022-childhood-obesity-in-european-region-remains-high--new-who-report-presents-latest-country-data

3.         Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Childhood overweight & obesity | Overweight & obesity | CDC [Internet]. 2022 [cited 2023 Mar 22]. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/childhood/index.html

4.         Fulkerson JA. Fast food in the diet: Implications and solutions for families. Physiology & Behavior [Internet]. 2018 Sep 1 [cited 2023 Feb 23];193:252–6. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031938418301732

5.         Smith KJ, McNaughton SA, Gall SL, Blizzard L, Dwyer T, Venn AJ. Takeaway food consumption and its associations with diet quality and abdominal obesity: A cross-sectional study of young adults. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity [Internet]. 2009 May 28 [cited 2023 Mar 22];6(1):29. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1186/1479-5868-6-29

6.         The George Insitute of Global Health. FoodSwitch: State of the fast food supply [Internet]. 2020 May. Available from: https://foodenvironmentdashboard.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/203/2021/05/State-of-the-fast-food-supply-2020.pdf

7.         Cook EJ, Powell FC, Ali N, Penn-Jones CP, Ochieng B, Constantinou G, et al. ‘They are kids, let them eat’: A qualitative investigation into the parental beliefs and practices of providing a healthy diet for young children among a culturally diverse and deprived population in the UK. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [Internet]. 2021 Jan [cited 2023 Mar 6];18(24):13087. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/24/13087

8.         Pescud M, Pettigrew S. ‘I know it’s wrong, but . . .’: A qualitative investigation of low-income parents’ feelings of guilt about their child-feeding practices: Parents’ guilt-inducing child-feeding practices. Maternal & Child Nutrition [Internet]. 2014 Jul [cited 2023 Mar 6];10(3):422–35. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1740-8709.2012.00425.x

9.         Dahl AA, Mayfield M, Fernandez-Borunda A, Butts SJ, Grafals M, Racine EF. Dinner planning and preparation considerations of parents with children attending childcare. Appetite [Internet]. 2023 Jan 1 [cited 2023 Mar 6];180:106332. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666322004238

10.       Martin-Biggers J, Spaccarotella K, Hongu N, Alleman G, Worobey J, Byrd-Bredbenner C. Translating it into real life: a qualitative study of the cognitions, barriers and supports for key obesogenic behaviors of parents of preschoolers | SpringerLink. 2015 [cited 2023 Feb 22];15(189). Available from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-015-1554-3

11.       Eck KM, Delaney CL, Clark RL, Leary MP, Shelnutt KP, Olfert MD, et al. The “Motor of the day”: Parent and school-age children’s cognitions, barriers, and supports for breakfast. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health [Internet]. 2019 Jan [cited 2023 Mar 24];16(18):3238. Available from: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/18/3238

12.       Healthline. Is Cooking with an Air Fryer Healthy? [Internet]. Nutrition. [cited 2023 Mar 17]. Available from: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/air-fryer#harmful-compounds

13.       Santiago E, Eck KM, Delaney C, Famodu OA, Olfert MD, Shelnutt KP, et al. “It’s good, it’s delicious, it’s great”: cognitions, barriers, and supports for fruit and vegetable intake of parents and school-aged children. Topics in Clinical Nutrition [Internet]. 2019 Jun [cited 2023 Mar 24];34(2):100. Available from: https://journals.lww.com/topicsinclinicalnutrition/Abstract/2019/04000/_It_s_Good,_It_s_Delicious,_It_s_Great__.3.aspx

14.       Vos M, Deforche B, Van Kerckhove A, Michels N, Geuens M, Van Lippevelde W. Intervention strategies to promote healthy and sustainable food choices among parents with lower and higher socioeconomic status. BMC Public Health [Internet]. 2022 Dec 19 [cited 2023 Mar 6];22(1):2378. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-14817-y

15.       Olfert MD, Hagedorn RL, Leary MP, Eck K, Shelnutt KP, Byrd-Bredbenner C. Parent and school-age children’s food preparation cognitions and behaviors guide recommendations for future interventions. J Nutr Educ Behav. 2019 Jun;51(6):684–92.

16.       Redine A, Deshpande S, Jebarajakirthy C, Surachartkumtonkun J. Impulse buying: A systematic literature review and future research directions. International Journal of Consumer Studies [Internet]. 2023 [cited 2023 Mar 24];47(1):3–41. Available from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ijcs.12862

17.       Marsh, Stuart. Aussies “saving more than $1300 a year by buying groceries online.” 9 News [Internet]. 2022 Mar 7 [cited 2023 Mar 24]; Available from: https://www.9news.com.au/national/aussies-saving-more-than-1300-a-year-by-buying-groceries-online/c8c4c2b8-a0cc-4ce4-a7ed-bb99b2a8b5a2

18.       Bursać Kovačević D, Brdar D, Fabečić P, Barba FJ, Lorenzo JM, Putnik P. Chapter 2 - Strategies to achieve a healthy and balanced diet: fruits and vegetables as a natural source of bioactive compounds [Internet]. Barba FJ, Putnik P, Kovačević DB, editors. 2020 [cited 2023 Mar 7]. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128172261000023

19.       Fulkerson JA, Kubik MY, Rydell S, Boutelle KN, Garwick A, Story M, et al. Focus groups with working parents of school-aged children: What’s needed to improve family meals? Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior [Internet]. 2011 May 1 [cited 2023 Mar 6];43(3):189–93. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1499404610001247

20.       Fultz AK, Baker S, Anderson Steeves E, Trabulsi J, Alvarado AV, Robson SM. Feasibility of implementing a food skills Intervention. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics [Internet]. 2022 Aug 1 [cited 2023 Mar 6];122(8):1525-1533.e4. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212267222001071

 

21.         Bursać Kovačević D, Brdar D, Fabečić P, Barba FJ, Lorenzo JM, Putnik P. Chapter 2 - Strategies to achieve a healthy and balanced diet: fruits and vegetables as a natural source of bioactive compounds [Internet]. Barba FJ, Putnik P, Kovačević DB, editors. 2020 [cited 2023 Mar 7]. Available from: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128172261000023