Embodying and embedding children's sleep: some sociological comments and observations

This paper, drawing on our own research findings data, explores the embodiment and embedment of sleeping in children's everyday/night lives. Key themes here include children's attitudes and feelings toward the dormant body, the processes, routines and rituals associated with going to bed and going to sleep, issues associated with bedrooms and privacy, and finally the relationship between dormancy and domicile. This in turn provides the basis, in the remainder of the paper, for a further series of reflections on the mutually informing relations between the sociology of sleep and the sociology of childhood. Remaining questions and challenges involved in researching children's sleep are also considered. Sleep, it is concluded, is not simply a rich and fascinating sociological topic in its own right it also has the potential to shed valuable new light on a significant yet hitherto under-researched part of children's lives, contributing important new insights in doing so.

Do parental feeding practices moderate the relationships between impulsivity and eating in children?

This study examines the relationships between children's impulsivity, their eating behaviours, and their perceptions of their parent's feeding practices. 153 10-13. year old children completed questionnaires assessing their eating behaviours, their impulsiveness and their perception of their parent's feeding practices. Children's reports of dysfunctional eating behaviours were significantly correlated with their perceptions of their parents feeding practices and with their levels of impulsivity. Children's reports of parental monitoring of their food intake significantly moderated the influence of child impulsiveness upon emotional eating. Children's perceptions of parental monitoring of their food intake may potentially have a protective effect at preventing more impulsive children from eating in response to emotional feelings. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.