Consumption of fruit, vegetables, sweets and soft drinks are associated with psychological dimensions of eating behaviour in parents and their 12-year-old children

Abstract

Objective: We investigated associations between consumption of fruits, vegetables, sweets and soft drinks and the psychological dimensions of eating in parents and their children. The role of the parent's characteristics for their children's food intake was also explored. Design: Food intake patterns were assessed by self-reported consumption of the respective foods. Eating behaviour was measured by the Dutch Eating Behaviour Questionnaire and self-esteem by Harter self-perception scale. The participants were 1441 families (mother, father and their 12-year-old child), and additionally 354 mothers and thirty fathers. Results: Among parents, reported intake of fruit and vegetables were associated with restrained eating, higher self-esteem, and higher education and age. Intake of sweets was related to more external and less restrained eating, and for mothers also emotional eating. Parent's intake of soft drink was foremost related to a younger age, and also weakly associated with psychological characteristics. The food intake of parents was more important for the children's food intake than any other characteristics. However, children's intake of sweets showed clear-cut positive associations with external eating. Conclusions: Psychological dimensions of eating behaviour are associated with patterns of food intake, in particular for consumption of sweets, and are most prominent in the parents. The children's food intake mirrored their parents' intake. Being sensitive to external food cues may increase unhealthy food consumption in our society, whereas more restrained eating may indicate proneness or intention to healthier food choices among parents. Emotional eating may imply a proneness to consume sweets for comfort, in particular among mothers.

Food consumption, eating behaviour and self-esteem among singlev. married and cohabiting mothers and their 12-year-old children

“…A parent-child association for food intakes has furthermore been shown (6)(7)(8) . Children's food consumption is to some extent determined by their parent's consumption.…”

“…In the parents, however, psychological aspects such as eating behaviour and self-esteem were found to be among the determinants for their food choices (6) . These psychological aspects should therefore be included in the study of healthrelated patterns.…”

Psychosocial predictors of decay in healthy eating and physical activity improvements in obese women regaining lost weight: translation of behavioral theory into treatment suggestions

“…Emotional and binge eating is often related to excess consumption of sweets and fats [20,50]. Because a minimum of only two to three moderate bouts of exercise per week has been shown to be associated with significant improvements in both mood [11] and emotional eating [19], treatment methods that were previously incorporated to maximize adherence to exercise (e.g., cognitive restructuring, relapse prevention) [42] might be reviewed with a participant to increase her physical activity to a point where mood is improved.…”

“…Also, the impact that exercise-induced mood change has on emotional eating [19] was leveraged. This impact is a factor previously shown to be associated with fruit and vegetable intake and consumption of sweets in women [20]. It was thought that this focus on building resilient self-regulatory skills, and accounting for psychosocial factors such as self-efficacy, mood, and emotional eating, would mitigate expected decays in the behaviors that are predictive of maintained weight loss [18,21].…”

“…Data from a subsample of participants of the aforementioned experimental treatment [18], who were initially successful at weight loss by losing at least the 3 % of their initial weight required for a reduction in health risks [4,5] but regained a minimum of one third of that weight over 2 years (which is indicative of a failure to sustain longterm effects [2,6]), were assessed. After considering previously suggested relationships between changes in psychosocial and behavioral correlates of weight [8,10,11,16,17,20,25], and incorporating suggestions for the use of mediation analyses to inform the architecture of interventions [26], the following hypotheses were provided:…”