Exploring the effects of maternal eating style on maternal feeding and child eating behavior
Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The issue of obesity and overweight in this country both interests and worries me.As I am going into the health field, and currently work in the fitness industry, this topic and the research about it are very relevant.When considering the research topic for my Honors Thesis, I knew I wanted to do something related to America's overweight and obesity epidemic, but did not know exactly how I would be able to.When I found Thomas Power had conducted research about childhood overweight and obesity relating to feeding styles and patterns, I was intrigued.To study this issue for my thesis, we chose to work with group data collected in 2008 by my advisor, Thomas Power, and some of his colleagues in Houston, Texas.There were a lot of unevaluated, well-collected data left to use, so after looking through the information available to us and the existing body of literature, we decided to analyze the relationships between Maternal Eating Styles, Maternal Feeding Styles, Child Eating Behaviors, and whether or not these behaviors related to the Child BMI in the sample population of lower-income African American and Latino families.Our hypothesis predicted that we would find significant correlations between these aspects of feeding and eating styles.Using statistical analyses of the data, we examined the correlations between these aspects as they relate to one another.While none of the data correlated with Child BMI, we did find significant correlations between Maternal External Eating (eating in response to outside stimuli, not because of internal hunger/thirst cues) and high "Picky Eating" and "Desire to Eat" behavior in their children.The relationship between Maternal External Eating was found to affect the "Picky Eating" through mediation of high control in feeding; the relationship between Maternal External Eating and greater "Desire to Eat," however, was not mediated by control.We also found slightly higher levels of "Picky Eating" of children for mothers who reported higher Emotional Eating, and significantly higher levels of "Desire to Eat" for mothers who reported higher Emotional Eating.These results allow us to better understand, if even slightly, the complex factors that influence the eating patterns that may lead to overweight or obesity in children and adults.Because every population and culture interacts in different ways, it is important to study how these relationships function for the many aspects of the population: different socioeconomic classes, ethnic groups, gender, etc.Our information should be built upon by future studies of different aspects of feeding and eating behaviors, different segments of the population, and different types of studies (ours was cross-sectional; a longitudinal study could perhaps give us better information) to flesh out the existing body of knowledge.The more we know, the better prepared we can be to prevent and combat the issues of overweight and obesity.Easily modifiable and affordable aspects relating to overweight and obesity in children and adults, such as eating and feeding habits, are one avenue that may be used to help fight and prevent this epidemic.Morrison
Author: Halley Morrison
Language: English
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2278096136