Parent Gender Affects the Influence of Parent Emotional Eating and Feeding Practices on Child Emotional Eating

Abstract

Extant research supports a direct association between parent’s own emotional eating and their child’s emotional eating, and demonstrates correlations among parent emotional eating, feeding practices, and child emotional eating. However, the majority of this work focuses on the separate influences of these factors. The current study aims to add to the literature by simultaneously examining the indirect effects of three major parental feeding practices (i.e., emotion regulation, instrumental, and restrictive feeding) in the association between parent emotional eating and child emotional eating, and exploring how these indirect effects vary based on parent gender. Parents (86 fathers, 324 mothers) of an elementary school-age child (M = 8.35, SD = 2.29, range = 5–13) completed an online survey through Qualtrics Panels. Results suggested that restrictive feeding partially accounted for the association between parent and child emotional eating in the combined sample of mothers and fathers. Exploratory analyses revealed that the indirect effects of parental feeding practices in the association between parent emotional eating and child emotional eating varied based on parent gender. Among mothers, restrictive feeding was the only feeding practice that partially accounted for the association between maternal and child emotional eating, whereas all three feeding practices fully accounted for the association between father and child emotional eating. As the bulk of the literature on parent emotional eating and feeding has solely focused on mothers, these findings offer insight into how feeding practices may differentially function in the relation between parent emotional eating and child emotional eating for mothers versus fathers.

#childhoodobesity – A brief literature review of the role of social media in body image shaping and eating patterns among children and adolescents

“…It is well known that children learn to eat through their own experience as well as through the observation of others ( 14 ). It can therefore be argued that parents’ nutritional preferences and behavior are related to the same behaviors of children and there is an extensive literature on this subject ( 15 – 17 ). As the knowledge about eating behaviors is quite extensive, so it is important to check how new technology (and social media in particular) can influence changes in this area.…”

“…There is a strong international interest in research into eating behavior, the transmission of eating patterns through the family environment, and body image formation, but few studies in this context have analyzed the impact of social media ( 15 – 17 ). Importantly, not only selfies but also sharing pictures of meals with friends is also a popular phenomenon on social media ( 37 ).…”

Factors that influence feeding practices among parents in Puncak Alam, Selangor

“…This is because some mothers with higher weight status may have difficulty regulating their emotions, which can impact their ability to support their child's emotional regulation, which is why they use food to soothe their child's emotions. A study found that child emotional eating results from children learning to use food to regulate negative emotions when parents use food to regulate their own emotions (Trevino et al, 2021). An additional study established that the complete mediation of the connection between parental and child emotional eating transpires when food is utilized to regulate children's emotions (Stone et al, 2022).…”

A Systematic Review of Research on Non-Maternal Caregivers’ Feeding of Children 0–3 Years

“…While some research explores the role of NMCs among school-aged children [ 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 ], less research examines the role of NMCs among very young children (ages 0–3). It is important to understand the influence that NMCs may have on feeding in this group of children in order to develop appropriate and effective interventions that can promote healthy eating behaviors and prevent chronic disease.…”