Children’s eating behaviors in a developmental perspective: Psychosocial predictors and importance for weight

Abstract

Are you eating fast or slow? Do you use food to soothe negative feelings? Are you a picky eater? These are some aspects of children’s eating behaviors, which are important for health, as some eating behaviors are related to an elevated risk of overweight and obesity as well as eating disorders. Such outcomes underscore the importance of promoting healthy eating in children, but knowledge about the etiology of eating behaviors is lacking. To provide such knowledge, the aim of this thesis was to examine what influences children's eating behaviors over time and to investigate the relation between eating behaviors and weight.

The results showed that children who had a temperament characterized by being difficult to soothe developed more emotional overeating, but this relation was only evident in children growing up in families characterized by poorer communication and more conflict. In addition, children with symptoms of ADHD developed more food responsiveness over time, which means they ate more in response to the sight or smell of food and not only because they were hungry. Children of parents who restricted their food intake, as when dieting, also developed more food responsiveness, whereas children who received less structure from their parents (for example fewer rules and boundaries) ate more in response to negative emotions. The findings also showed that children from families with poorer communication and more conflict were more likely to eat less in response to negative feelings over time. All the above-noted findings were seen from age 6 to age 10. The relation between eating behaviors and weight in children was examined from age 6 until age 14, and, surprisingly, the results did not show that eating behaviors predicted children’s BMI over time. Rather, it was the other way around: Children with steeper BMI increases developed more food responsiveness, emotional overeating and enjoyment of food as well as lower satiety responsiveness.