UCL London Family Study 2024

*New Research Opportunity* Dr Luisa Rivera from UCL is looking to interview people in their 30s born in Bath/Bristol area as part of our research project. Leave a comment/message for more info, or go to https://redcap.link/cooperative_childrearing to sign up.

📣Our study findings are now ready!📣

We found that:

1. When talking about children's weight, parents tended to focus on food, even though parents knew both food and activity were important for healthy weight. Diet culture seems to have a strong subconscious influence on how we talk about weight, even if we disagree with diet culture!

2. Parents knew health was complex, and parents felt BMI did not accurately measure health. Many parents therefore took issue with BMI being used as a "diagnosis" of overweight or obesity, as it did not take into account of different children and their situations.

3. Parents viewed food as nourishment which was important for development. Parents tried to ensure their children ate a variety of foods. Parents trusted children's bodies around their hunger, and felt that if children were hungry it's because they were growing. Children had relatively high autonomy around how much they ate and what they ate (or what they didn't eat), with a few rules here and there.

4. Parents took children to activities and places where they could play actively based on children's enjoyment and benefits for their overall development.

5. Finally, there were some things that made healthy living challenging. For one, all families were incredibly busy! That meant preparing food at home had to be very quick and easy. Some families raised issues around finding affordable things to do, particularly on weekends, as many activities were on during the working day, during term times.

If you'd like to find out more, you can take a look at our results here: https://osf.io/5a26u

Thank you to all the London parents and caregivers that took part 😊

osf.io Hosted on the Open Science Framework

Thank you so much to the 600+ parents/caregivers who took part in our study so far😲

Our survey on family wellbeing and health is still open! If you are a London parent/caregiver with children aged 0-12 years, it's not too late to take part via link below ⬇

https://qualtrics.ucl.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_ewzCZy5ivY3EeZE

Survey now live! Calling London parents/caregivers with children aged 0-12 years!

We want to hear your views about what’s important for your family’s wellbeing and health. We hope this will help improve public services and future research! Click on the link below to take part 😊 (UCL Project ID: SHSAnth-2324-055-1)

Understanding Family Lives in London | Survey We are running a research project to understand the lives of families with younger children in London. We are particularly interested in family well-being and health, as well as your thoughts on how the government measures children's physical growth. You can take part in the survey if you are a pare...

Hello everyone! This page is dedicated to providing updates and information about the "Understanding the Healthy Lives of Families with Younger Children in London" study.

The project is being run by Dr Emily Emmott at UCL Anthropology. Any questions, just ask🙂