Identifying Parental Feeding Patterns in a Spanish Sample of Toddlers Using a Latent Class Analysis

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Nutritional Psychology
• Family Studies

Background:

• Parental feeding styles significantly impact child development.
• Traditional classification methods rely on fixed cut-off points for responsiveness and demandingness.
• Latent class analysis (LCA) offers a data-driven approach to identify homogeneous subgroups within populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify distinct parental feeding styles in a Spanish sample using LCA.
• To examine sociodemographic and psychological correlates of these identified feeding styles.
• To compare LCA-based classification with traditional median split methods for parental feeding styles.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional study involving 774 parents of toddlers in Spain.
• One-step latent class analysis (LCA) with covariates was used to analyze feeding demandingness and responsiveness.
• Cross-tabulations compared LCA results with median split cut-off points.

Main Results:

• Four distinct parental feeding patterns emerged: Moderately Authoritative, Authoritative, Moderate, and Indulgent.
• Mothers were more prevalent in the Indulgent class; higher parental stress correlated with the Moderate class.
• Classification consistency differed between LCA and median split methods; traditional authoritarian and uninvolved styles were not detected by LCA.

Conclusions:

• Parental gender and stress levels are significant factors influencing the distribution of feeding styles.
• LCA provides a nuanced understanding of feeding styles, potentially improving the accuracy of interventions.
• Consideration of these factors is crucial for research and intervention design across diverse populations.