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Parental depression and emotional feeding practices are associated with a tendency towards overeating in

Catharina Sarkkola1,2, Marja H Leppänen1,3,4, Aino-Maija Eloranta4,5,6

  • 1Folkhälsan Research Center, Helsinki, Finland.

Frontiers in Nutrition
|January 20, 2025
PubMed

Insights

Parental depression and emotional feeding, along with child sex and weight status, are linked to preadolescent overeating. Supporting parental mental health and feeding practices is key to preventing childhood overweight.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Health
  • Child Psychology
  • Nutritional Science

Background:

  • Children's eating behaviors, particularly overeating, are family-influenced and risk factors for excessive weight gain.
  • Identifying factors contributing to overeating is crucial for promoting healthy child weight development.
  • Research on overeating in preadolescence is limited, necessitating investigation into child and parental characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate child and parental characteristics associated with overeating in preadolescence.
  • To identify independent determinants of overeating in 9-12-year-old children.

Main Methods:

  • Cross-sectional study of 5,973 preadolescents (aged 9-12) from the Finnish Health in Teens (Fin-HIT) cohort.
  • Overeating tendency assessed via parent-reported question.
  • Ordinal and stepwise logistic regression used with parent questionnaire and Medical Birth Register data.

Main Results:

  • 10% of preadolescents reported a tendency towards overeating.
  • Boys had higher odds of overeating than girls (OR 1.30).
  • Overweight and obese preadolescents had significantly higher odds of overeating (9- and 30-fold, respectively).
  • Parental depression (OR 1.48) and emotional feeding (OR 1.27) independently increased odds of preadolescent overeating.

Conclusions:

  • Child weight status, sex, parental depression, and emotional feeding are independently associated with preadolescent overeating.
  • Supporting parental mental health and healthy feeding practices is important.
  • Findings can inform interventions to manage overeating and prevent overweight in children and adolescents.
Abstract

Keywords:
children and adolescentseating behavioremotional feedingfamilyovereatingoverweight and obesityparental depressionparental feeding practices

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