Parents' cooking skills confidence reduce children's consumption of ultra-processed foods

Ultra-processed foods are industrial formulations requiring little if any preparation before consumption. Their consumption is increasing in many countries and one of the possible determinants is the decrease in home cooking. As parents are key for family meals, we analysed the influence of parents' cooking skills confidence on children's consumption of ultra-processed foods at dinner. This is a cross-sectional study with 657 child-parent pairs from nine private schools in São Paulo, Brazil. Food consumption data were collected using two children's dinner dietary recalls while the Cooking Skills Index was used to collect parents' cooking skills, measuring their confidence in their own skills related to cooking ‘from scratch’, according to the Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population. Food items were classified according to the NOVA classification system, considering the nature, extension and purpose of food processing. We used linear regression models to test associations between parents' cooking skills confidence and the contribution of ultra-processed foods to total energy intake at dinner, adjusting for socio-demographic variables. Parents' mean age was 38.3 and children's mean age was 7.8. These parents were mostly women, white, married, employed, with full secondary education and per capita household incomes up to ~ USD 320.00/month. They reached an average of 78.8 points (SD 14.8) in the Cooking Skills Index. Children's mean energy intake at dinner was 672.2 kcal (31.3% from ultra-processed foods). The increase in parents' cooking skills confidence was directly associated with decrease in consumption of ultra-processed foods (β = −0.17; p = 0.007), which remained after adjustment (β = −0.15; p = 0.026). These findings suggest that parents' cooking skills confidence potentially protect their children against ultra-processed foods, indicating the need for revaluing cooking to promote healthy eating.