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Updated: Jul 17, 2025

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
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Published on: February 11, 2017

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Maternal control and eating styles in children: The mediating role of emotion differentiation

Marco Scotto Rosato1, Annarosa Cipriano1, Rosanna Napolano1

  • 1Observatory on Eating Disorders, Department of Psychology, University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli", Caserta, Italy.

Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry
|August 30, 2023
PubMed

Introduction: Theoretical accounts and empirical research suggest that mother-child interactions significantly influence the child's eating styles (emotional, external, and restrained eating). However, little or no research has explored the association between maternal psychological control and eating styles and whether other mechanisms may be involved in such association. To address this shortcoming, the present study aimed to investigate the mediating role of difficulties in differentiating emotions between maternal control and eating styles.Methods: Participants were 324 elementary school children (Girls = 172, 53.1%) aged between 8 and 11 years (Mage = 9.13, SD = .89) assessed through self-report measures. Parents provided information about weight and height.Results: Path analysis model showed an acceptable fit to the data (χ2 (3) = 3.966, p = .256; RMSEA = .032; CFI = .990; TLI = .911; SRMR = .018). Difficulties in differentiating emotions significantly mediated the relationship between maternal control and emotional eating (β = -.071, 95%CI [-.094, -.052]; p < .001). The model was invariant across genders.Conclusions: Our findings support the importance of dyadic interaction in enhancing the risk for dysfunctional eating style during infancy, showing that emotion differentiation deficits may be particularly salient in such relationship. Clinical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords:
Maternal psychological controlchildreneating stylesemotional eatingemotions differentiation

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