Changing Family Food and Eating Practices: The Family Food Decision-Making System

BACKGROUND: Food decision-making processes interact with family and community environments to shape families' thinking (i.e., their constructed reality) about food, eating, health, and well-being as discussed by Gillespie and Gillespie (J Fam Consum Sci 99(2):22-28 2007). PURPOSE: To understand the processes and impetuses for changing family food and eating routines and policies and to develop a framework for the family food decision-making system (FFDS). METHODS: Interviews and observations with parents and change agents were used to generate grounded theory in the form of propositions which provided the basis for the FFDS framework. RESULTS: The propositions elucidate the processes of and influences on family food decision-making systems. The framework illustrates the family food decision-making system and processes of changing family food and eating routines and policies. CONCLUSION: The FDMS framework begins to address the complexity of food decision-making to guide intervention planning and further research.