Parents’ Instrumental Family Support, Diet Quality, and Satisfaction with Food-Related Life: A Dyadic Approach in Dual-Earner Parents and Their Adolescent Children

Background: Research on family support has primarily focused on emotional aspects, paying less attention to instrumental support and its concurrent association with food-related well-being. Aim: To explore direct and indirect actor and partner effects among parents’ instrumental family support, diet quality, and satisfaction with food-related life (SWFoL) in dual-earner families with adolescents. Methods: Online surveys were conducted with 860 dual-earner parent dyads and one adolescent child (mean age 12.7 ± 1.8 years; 49.8% female) in Chile. Family members completed the Adapted Healthy Eating Index and the SWFoL Scale; parents also answered an Instrumental Support subscale. Analyses were conducted using a mediation Actor–Partner Interdependence Model via structural equation modeling. Results: Mothers’ and fathers’ instrumental support was positively associated with their own SWFoL, both directly and indirectly via their diet quality. Parents’ support was also positively related to adolescents’ SWFoL directly and indirectly via adolescents’ diet quality. Symmetrical crossover effects between instrumental support and SWFoL emerged for both parents. Mothers’ support was additionally associated with fathers’ SWFoL indirectly through fathers’ diet quality. Conclusions: Instrumental support operates as a vital systemic resource within dual-earner households. By enhancing diet quality, tangible support protects family food-related well-being and embeds adolescents’ nutritional health within the parental resource ecosystem.