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Differences in parental behaviour, emotions, and cognitions between children's eating profiles
Katie L Edwards1, Abigail Pickard1, Claire Farrow1
1School of Psychology and Institute of Health and Neurodevelopment, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Appetite
|August 22, 2024
Summary
Parental wellbeing and feeding practices differ based on a child's eating profile. Children's eating behaviors (appetitive traits) influence parent stress, goals, and perceptions, highlighting the need for tailored interventions.
Area of Science:
- Child Psychology
- Nutritional Science
- Parenting Studies
Background:
- Parental psychological characteristics influence children's eating behaviors.
- Parent-child feeding interactions are complex and reciprocal.
- Children's appetitive traits can be categorized into distinct eating profiles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if parental behaviors, emotions, and cognitions vary based on a child's identified eating profile.
- To explore the relationship between children's eating profiles and parental psychological characteristics.
- To inform the development of targeted interventions for children's healthy eating.
Main Methods:
- Recruited parents (N=632) of children aged 3-6 years with pre-identified avoidant, typical, happy, or avid eating profiles.
- Parents completed online questionnaires on parenting styles, emotions (stress, wellbeing), and cognitions (goals, self-efficacy, meal prep resources, body size perceptions).
- Analyzed questionnaire data to identify differences in parental responses across children's eating profiles.
Main Results:
- Significant differences were found in parental responses correlated with children's eating profiles.
- Parents of children with 'happy' eating profiles reported higher wellbeing and meal prep resources, with fewer goals of avoiding mealtime stress.
- Parents of children with 'avoidant' profiles reported lower wellbeing, and perceived children with 'avid' profiles as heavier and 'avoidant' profiles as lighter.
Conclusions:
- Parental psychological characteristics and perceptions significantly differ based on children's eating profiles.
- Understanding these differences is crucial for developing effective, individualized interventions to support healthy child eating.
- The study underscores the bidirectional influence within parent-child feeding dynamics and its impact on psychological wellbeing.
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