Maternal mind-mindedness during infancy, general parenting sensitivity and observed child feeding behavior:a longitudinal study

Maternal mind-mindedness, or the tendency to view the child as a mental agent, has been shown to predict sensitive and responsive parenting behavior. As yet the role of mind-mindedness has not been explored in the context of feeding interactions. This study evaluates the relations between maternal mind-mindedness at 6 months of infant age and subsequently observed maternal sensitivity and feeding behaviors with children at age 1 year. Maternal mind-mindedness was greater in mothers who had breast-fed compared to formula-fed. Controlling for breast-feeding, mind-mindedness at 6 months was correlated with observations of more sensitive and positive feeding behaviors at 1 year of age. Mind-mindedness was also associated with greater general maternal sensitivity in play and this general parenting sensitivity mediated the effect of mind-mindedness on more sensitive and positive feeding behaviors. Interventions to promote maternal tendency to consider their child's mental states may encourage more adaptive parental feeding behaviors. © 2014 Taylor & Francis.

Retrospective reports of child feeding practices, current eating behaviors, and BMI in college students

Research concerning child feeding practices has focused on children and adolescents, and little is known about how feeding practices used in childhood relate to eating behaviors and weight status in early adulthood. We assessed college students' and their parents' retrospective reports of child feeding practices used when the students were in middle childhood. We also assessed the college students' current reports of their eating behaviors using the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire (DEBQ) and the Intuitive Eating Scale (IES), and measured their current BMI. Results showed that college students' and their parents' reports about previous parental use of child feeding practices were not correlated. Parent reports of their own use of child feeding practices were more related to students' eating behaviors and BMI than were students' recollections about feeding practices used by their parents. An analysis of gender effects showed that there were positive correlations between parental child feeding practices, BMI, and emotional eating for female students. These relationships did not exist for male students. The results suggest that child feeding practices recollected by parents are linked to the development of emotional eating and weight status of women in early adulthood.

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.

Milk feeding, solid feeding, and obesity risk:a review of the relationships between early life feeding practices and later adiposity

Childhood obesity is a major health issue with associated ill-health consequences during childhood and into later adolescence and adulthood. Given that eating behaviors are formed during early childhood, it is important to evaluate the relationships between early life feeding practices and later child adiposity. This review describes and evaluates recent literature exploring associations between child weight and the mode of milk feeding, the age of introducing solid foods and caregivers’ solid feeding practices. There are many inconsistencies in the literature linking early life feeding to later obesity risk and discrepancies may be related to inconsistent definitions, or a lack of control for confounding variables. This review summarizes the literature in this area and identifies the need for large scale longitudinal studies to effectively explore how early life feeding experiences may interact with each other and with nutritional provision during later childhood to predict obesity risk.

A comparison between the feeding practices of parents and grandparents

Grandparents play a valuable role in the socialisation of young children, and as many as 36% of British parents use grandparents as their main form of childcare. Research has begun to explore how grandparents impact the social and cognitive development of children, but very little research has evaluated their contribution to child feeding. The present study explores whether there are differences between parents and grandparents in terms of their feeding practices, and whether grandparents' feeding practices are related to the number of hours that they spend caring for grandchildren. Results indicate that grandparents reported using significantly more maladaptive feeding practices such as using food to regulate emotions and restricting food, but more positive practices such as providing a healthy food environment. The more hours that grandparents spent caring for children the more their feeding practices resembled those broadly reported by parents. Results suggest that grandparents can have a measurable impact on child feeding behaviour which in turn is likely to predict the eating behaviours of their grandchildren. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.