Parental Feeding Style and the Inter‐generational Transmission of Obesity Risk

Abstract

WARDLE, JANE, SASKIA SANDERSON, CAROL ANN GUTHRIE, LORNA RAPOPORT, AND ROBERT PLOMIN. Parental feeding style and the intergenerational transmission of obesity risk. Obes Res. 2002;10:453-462. Objective: This study was designed to determine whether a community sample of obese mothers with young children used different feeding styles compared with a matched sample of normal-weight mothers. Four aspects of feeding style were assessed: emotional feeding, instrumental feeding (using food as a reward), prompting/encouragement to eat, and control over eating. Research Methods and Procedures: Participants were from 214 families with same-sex twins; 100 families in which both parents were overweight or obese and 114 in which both parents were normal weight or lean. Results: We found that obese mothers were no more likely than normal-weight mothers to offer food to deal with emotional distress, use food as a form of reward, or encourage the child to eat more than was wanted. The obese and normal-weight mothers did differ on "control"; obese mothers reported significantly less control over their children's intake, and this was seen for both first-born and second-born twins. Twin analyses showed that these differences were not in response to children's genetic propensities, because monozygotic correlations were no greater than dizygotic correlations for maternal feeding style. Discussion: These results suggest that the stereotype of the obese mother, who uses food in nonnutritive ways so that her child also becomes obese, is more likely to be myth than fact. However, the results raise the possibility that lack of control of food intake might contribute to the emergence of differences in weight.

Parental restriction and children’s diets. The chocolate coin and Easter egg experiments

“…This supports previous research indicating that parental restriction may be an effective method for managing children's diets and when effective can result in a reduced intake of unhealthy foods (eg. Wardle et al, 2002;Brown and Ogden, 2004;Ogden et al, 2006).…”

“…This supports previous research indicating that parental restriction may be an effective method for managing children's diets and when effective can result in a reduced intake of unhealthy foods (eg. Wardle et al, 2002;Brown and Ogden, 2004;Ogden et al, 2006).The results, however, also indicated that this may only occur in the shorter term due to changes in the preoccupation with the food being restricted. In particular, both studies indicated that although non restriction resulted in an initial increase in the preoccupation with the food being restricted, and although all participants showed a reduction in this preoccupation over the course of the studies, this reduction was greater in the non restriction than restriction participants.…”

“…For example, Birch and colleagues have carried out a number of studies exploring the impact of control and developed the Child Feeding Questionnaire which operationalised control in terms of monitoring, restriction and pressure to eat (Birch et al, 2001). In a similar vein, Wardle et al (2002) categorised control in terms of providing food in response to a child's emotional distress, using food as a reward, applying pressure to eat or applying restrictions upon eating. In contrast, Ogden, Reynolds and Smith (2006) focused on the restrictive aspects of parental feeding practices and categorised this into two main types of control termed covert and overt control.…”

Associations of parental feeding styles with child snacking behaviour and weight in the context of general parenting

“…Parental feeding styles Parental feeding styles were parent-reported and measured using a validated Dutch translation (23) of the Parental Feeding Style Questionnaire (PFSQ), designed and validated by Wardle and colleagues (18) . This twenty-seven-item measure assessed four feeding style dimensions: Instrumental Feeding, Emotional Feeding, Encouragement to eat, and Control over eating.…”

Measures of the home environment related to childhood obesity: a systematic review

“…These four subscales demonstrated moderate internal consistency (a 5 0?65-0?85) and test-retest reliability (r 5 0?67-0?83) (69) . Hughes et al (70) wanted to expand the concept of child feeding to include dimensions of Maccoby and Martin's (71) typology of general parenting (demandingness and responsiveness) regarding the child's eating: parent-centred and childcentred strategies (70) .…”