Public Health Nutrition: 14(11), 2037–2048 doi:10.1017/S136898001100036X Is maternal education level associated with diet in 10-year-old children? Victoria L Cribb 1 , Louise R Jones 1 , Imogen S Rogers 2 , Andrew R Ness 3 and Pauline M Emmett 1, *- 1 School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK: 2 School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK: 3 Department of Oral and Dental Science, Bristol Dental School, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Submitted 20 April 2010: Accepted 24 January 2011: First published online 18 March 2011 Abstract Objective: To examine the associations between maternal education level and diet in 10-year-old children. Design: Three-day diet diaries (child completed with parental help) were col- lected. Height and weight were measured in research clinics. Maternal education level was derived from a questionnaire completed during pregnancy and classi- fied into low, medium or high. One-way ANOVA was undertaken to compare maternal education groups for nutrient intakes and the Kruskal–Wallis test used for food consumption. Setting: Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), Bristol, UK. Subjects: Children (n 7474) who provided dietary data at age 10 years. Results: A large proportion (60 %) of the sample was classified as plausible reporters, with under-reporting accounting for 36 %. No clear differences were found for intakes of energy or macronutrients between maternal education groups for plausible reporters. However, there were marked differences in micronutrient intakes especially for vitamin C, retinol equivalents and folate, highlighting lower diet quality with lower maternal education level. Intakes of fruit and vegetables showed a positive gradient with increasing maternal edu- cation (57 % v. 79 % consumed fresh fruit in low and high educational groups, respectively). A trend towards higher intake in the lower educated group was shown for less healthy foods (meat pies P , 0?001; sausages, burgers and kebabs P , 0?001). Conclusions: The quality of children’s diet at 10 years was related to maternal education level. Lower maternal education was associated with less healthy food choices that could be detrimental to health. Further research is needed to establish if these associations can be explained by other socio-economic factors. Keywords Food groups Misreporting Fruit and vegetables ALSPAC Diet is important in the health and development of children, and can impact on later health outcomes (1) . The early adoption of healthy lifestyle behaviours can reduce the risk of disease (2,3) and have implications for the child’s behaviour and school performance (4,5) . Establishing and maintaining healthy eating habits is important because habits formed in early life are likely to continue into adulthood (2,4) , therefore it is very important to understand influences on children’s diets. It has been suggested that maternal education may play a key role in the quality of children’s diets (6,7) . Parents, especially mothers, help children learn and develop both eating habits and food choices (8) ; this may act through their personal preferences (9,10) , attitudes to food (11) and their knowledge and understanding of the benefits of a healthy diet (9,12) . However, children can exercise their own control independent of their parents; it has been observed that children varied the foods they consumed depending on whether or not they were being observed by their parents (13) . Several studies have examined the relationship between maternal education and diet in infants and children. Higher maternal educational status was associated with longer duration of breast-feeding, improved physical growth, higher intakes of micronutrients, fruits and vegetables, and lower intake of soft drinks (6,7,14–16) . A relatively small y Correspondence address: Centre for Child & Adolescent Health, School of Social and Community Medicine, Oakfield House, Oakfield Grove, Bristol BS8 2BN, UK. *Corresponding author: Email p.m.Emmett@bristol.ac.uk r The Authors 2011 https://doi.org/10.1017/S136898001100036X Published online by Cambridge University Press