Background:

Overweight and childhood obesity is an ongoing problem in Sweden today. Child health care nurses (CHC nurses) plays a central role in establishing healthy eating habits in children. The importance of introducing healthy eating habits early in life in order to prevent childhood overweight and obesity is well stated.

Aim:

The aim was to illuminate CHC nurses´ experiences of establishing good eating habits in children 0-6 years.

Method:

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with nine nurses from Child health care centers in western Sweden. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze data and resulted in three categories and four subcategories.

Results:

The analysis resulted in three categories which represented the CHC nurses work in supporting healthy diets; the professional relationship, emotional experiences and establishing healthy diets. The results show that establishing healthy eating habits in children were dependent on the relationship between the parents and the CHC nurse. The CHC nurse professional experiences were helpful when approaching families, although the feeling of discomfort when addressing unhealthy eating habits remained.

Conclusion:

The CHC nurses stated that it was fun and easy to talk to children and their parents about food and healthy diets, as long as they had the same approach. When the parents had a different opinion it became a sensitive and difficult task. The CHC nurses struggled with targeted actions preventing unhealthy eating habits.