Unhealthy eating behaviors are risk factors for non-communicable diseases. Eating behaviors are formed during childhood; parents play a crucial role in influencing their children future food choices and preferences. Parental feeding practices in line with recommendations have a higher chance to turn into healthier related outcomes. However, low parental health literacy might limit the understanding of recommendations and, therefore, the ability to act as recommended. Providing simple and clear messages might be a way to remedy this and strengthen existing knowledge on infant and young child feeding (IYCF). Nevertheless, it is important to evaluate whether these messages are correctly understood by all parents. Knowledge and understanding are powerful tools to promote health and guide societies towards positive health behaviors, thus ensuring, among other skills, improved IYCF practices.

This study aims to evaluate the effect of reading updated IYCF recommendations gathered in a brochure on knowledge correctness and certainty in French parents. A representative sample of 501 parents (quotas sampling) completed an online questionnaire (T0) comprising 30 sentences regarding IYCF. For each, parents indicated whether it was true/false and how certain they were of their answer (4-point scale). After receiving and reading the brochure, the same parents completed the same questionnaire three weeks later (T1). Correctness (number of correct answers) and certainty (number of mastered answers: correct answers given with the maximal degree of certainty) were compared (T1 vs.T0).

A total of 452 parents answered T0 and T1 and were considered for analysis. Between T0 and T1, the number of correct answers (median 22 to 25, t(451)=17.2, p=<0.001) and of mastered answers (median 11 to 17, t(451)=18.8, p=<0.001) increased. The median of the differences was larger for mastered answers: the brochure had a stronger effect on increasing the certainty of parental knowledge than its correctness.

A brochure containing IYCF recommendations has the potential to augment not only the level but also the quality of parental knowledge (even when knowledge level is already high, as observed here). Future work will evaluate whether this increase in knowledge transfers into increases in self-efficacy and IYCF literacy, as further steps into optimal parental feeding practices.