Eating behaviour in childhood week/lecture 4/5 - additional reading

Question 1

Reciprocal associations between parental feeding practices and child eating behaviours from toddlerhood to early childhood: bivariate latent change analysis in the Gemini cohort, Kinimonth et al., (2023)

Answer 1

• Parental feeding practices are key component of child’s food environment
  ○ Bidirectional?
  
  • Reciprocal relationship between instrumental feeding and emotional overeating
    ○ Greater instrumental feeding predicts greater increases in emotional overeating
  • Reciprocity between encouragement to eat nutritious foods and children’s enjoyment of food
    ○ Greater encouragement predicts greater increases in enjoyment of food
  • Certain feeding practices are used as a ‘natural’ response to a child expressing a greater interest in and enthusiasm for food
  • Such practices impact the development of eating behaviours by nurturing and encouraging the expression of higher emotional overeating and greater enjoyment of food in preschool years

Question 2

Parental Feeding Practices and Children’s Eating Behaviours: An Overview of Their Complex Relationship, Costa & Oliveira (2023)

Answer 2

• Association between eating behaviours and weight status and obesity risk in childhood
  
  • Children’s eating behaviours arise from combination of genetic and environmental factors
  • Parents play central role in their development
    ○ Main factor responsible for shaping feeding behaviour and eating experiences
  • Bidirectional association
  • Children’s eating behaviours influence parents to adopt certain feeding practices
    ○ These practices also influence children’s behaviours over time