ABSTRACT
The home food environment is considered central to dietary intake and shaping eating behaviours, making it a critical target for improving diet quality. It is also, arguably, one of the hardest environments to reach through traditional interventions. Children spend a significant amount of time in their earliest years within the home; it is where they consume the greatest proportion of their daily food intake and where they observe and learn from others’ behaviour. This chapter aims to examine what we currently understand about the home food environment and its role on children’s diet and health. It covers how the home food environment is conceptualised and measured in research, and describes the factors identified as important for determining children’s food choice. Potentially modifiable factors within the home food environment that offer targets for interventions aiming to improve children’s’ diets are also discussed.
