Background and Purpose: To attain sustainable development in the future, society requires healthy individuals, with particular emphasis on monitoring the health status of present-day children. Therefore, the present study investigated the most important predictors of nutritional behaviors in Iranian mothers of children under two years.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted at Nowshahr Health Center between January and July 2022. It involved 400 mothers with children aged 6 to 24 months, randomly selected in a cluster proportional to the volume. The data collection tool was a researcher-made questionnaire comprising 25 questions based on the TPB (attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention). The analysis was performed using SPSS software, version 22.
Results: In this study, the Mean±SD of participating mothers ages was 25.3±0.92 years. The results showed that among the constructs of the TPB, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms were the most important predictors of healthy nutritional behaviors among mothers, with a change variance of 20%.
Conclusion: The findings of this study have implications for health professionals, policymakers, and developers of educational and behavioral interventions aimed at developing healthy nutritional behaviors. In this regard, managing and utilizing favorable healthy nutritional behaviors among mothers could yield economic, social, and health benefits.