Emirati mothers’ perceptions and willingness to serve ultra-processed and traditional foods to young children

Early childhood food choices are shaped by caregiver decisions, yet little is known about how Emirati mothers evaluate ultra-processed foods (UPFs) versus traditional foods for children aged 6 months to 5 years. Using a culturally adapted questionnaire, 283 mothers rated 12 foods (6 UPFs, 6 traditional foods) for perceived healthiness, willingness to serve, convenience, tastiness, processing, and cultural familiarity. Traditional foods were rated consistently higher than UPFs for perceived healthiness (3.70 vs. 1.81), willingness to serve (3.60 vs. 2.54), convenience (3.65 vs. 2.26), tastiness (3.83 vs. 3.48), and cultural familiarity (3.89 vs. 2.91), whereas UPFs were rated as more processed (3.14 vs. 2.74) (all p < 0.001). Willingness to serve was analyzed using cumulative link mixed models on 3,324 food-level observations from 277 mothers with complete covariate data. In the base model, UPF status was associated with lower willingness to serve (OR = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.04–0.39). In the fully adjusted model, this association was attenuated and was not statistically significant (OR = 1.23, 95% CI: 0.57–2.64), whereas cultural familiarity (OR = 2.35, 95% CI: 2.16–2.55), convenience (OR = 2.28, 95% CI: 2.03–2.56), tastiness (OR = 1.73, 95% CI: 1.59–1.88), and perceived healthiness (OR = 1.64, 95% CI: 1.44–1.85) were positively associated with willingness to serve. Thus, maternal willingness to serve food to young children was more strongly associated with food-specific perceptions than with food type alone, highlighting the importance of culturally familiar and practical alternatives in efforts to reduce early-life reliance on UPFs.