Body fat, anxiety‐related overeating, and child‐feeding attitudes among 221 college women were studied along with child‐feeding attitudes of the students' mothers. The Child‐Feeding Opinion Questionnaire (CFOQ) was developed to assess attitudes toward the use of food as (a) a reward, (b) a punishment, (c) a soothing agent, and (d) an expression of affection. A six‐item reactive overeating scale was developed to assess the magnitude and frequency of anxiety‐ related overeating among the college students. Anxiety‐related overeating was not found to be related to obesity among the daughters. Child‐feeding attitudes of both mothers and daughters were not related to either skinfold thickness (body fat) or to reactive eating scores of the daughters. These findings failed to sup port previous claims of a relationship between parental use of food as an emotion‐laden com munication vehicle and anxiety‐related overeating or subsequent obesity among offspring. Positive but low correlations were obtained between childfeeding attitude scores of mothers and their daughters. High positive intercorrelations were found among scores on several subscales when mothers' and daughters' data were analyzed separately.

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