FGDs with mothers as household representatives
CHILDHOOD OBESITY, RECRUITMENT
Sixty-three mothers participated in our study. The mothers’ general characteristics have been presented in Ten FGDs were conducted with mothers of school children aged 6–12 years in ten primary schools from southern, northern, eastern, western, and central Tehran. Two primary schools were randomly selected from each district. This way, we achieved homogenous sampling with respect to the participants’ socioeconomic status. Primary school children’s mothers were chosen due to the importance of childhood obesity and their role as gatekeepers and choosing food. Primary schools in Iran include 6–12-year-old children. As mentioned earlier, 2 schools were randomly selected from the northern, eastern, western, central and southern areas of Tehran. All participants were literate and willing to participate. Mothers who were nutritionists or food technologists were excluded from the study; however, there were no limitations on their age. Mothers were invited to the respective schools by phone, and we continued recruitment until at least 6 mothers –who met our selection criteria- agreed to participate. All sessions were recorded with a voice recorder, after obtaining the participants’ consent. FGDs consisted of two parts: in the first part, the existing labels were discussed, and in the second part, the mothers were asked, for an average of 75 min, about the new PACE label. The researcher used a guide for asking questions (