Mindful mouthfuls: Developing healthy eating behaviours from infancy

The RPH Research Foundation proudly provides a 2022 Springboard Plus grant to Associate Professor Therese O’Sullivan and her research team to investigate how to support parents in developing healthy relationships between their children and food from a young age.

The first year of life is vital for a child’s development but can also be one of the most stressful periods for parents. Parents are tackling many different challenges including sleep issues, teething, introducing foods and developing relationships.

This research project investigates how to best support parents and their babies through the Happy Parenting Program. Parents and babies are allocated to one of three different types of parenting sessions and effects on parenting confidence, mealtime stress, the parent-child relationship and other outcomes are studied.

Lead researcher, Associate Professor Therese O'Sullivan, said preliminary data had shown this method significantly lowers parents' stress levels and increases parenting confidence in as little as six weeks.

​If successful, the program could be incorporated into standard care pathways and have a significant impact on reducing childhood obesity and improving overall health outcomes.

In the first year of the project, there were four terms of parenting workshops conducted with 77 participants taking part in 2023.

One participant shared “The skills I took away I feel have made me a better mum for my son, and more aware and in tune with him and his needs.”

Parents who are interested in taking part with their babies can find more information on the Happy Parenting Program homepage.