Fathers’ attachment representations and infant feeding practices

Abstract

This study examined how fathers' adult attachment representations, assessed before the birth of their first child, predict feeding practices with their 8-month-old infants. Fathers have been underrepresented in child feeding research, particularly in longitudinal and observational studies. Feeding is a key parenting task of infancy and a growing number of studies have begun to explore the connection between attachment and parental feeding practices and behavior, revealing a clear link between mothers' adult attachment and how they feed their children. This is the first longitudinal examination of attachment as a prenatal predictor of fathers' infant feeding behavior. Participants were 118 first-time fathers and their infants. Adult Attachment Interviews were conducted in the third trimester of pregnancy, and father-infant feeding interactions were observed at home when the infant was 8-months-old. Videotaped feedings were coded using Chatoor's Feeding Scale (1997). Compared to other fathers, (1) those with secure attachment representations were more attuned to their infants during feeding, (2) those with dismissing representations were less attuned, and (3) those with unresolved trauma displayed more controlling behaviors. Fathers were more controlling with their sons than their daughters across all attachment representations. Study results suggest that father's infant feeding behaviors may influence by their own attachment representations. The links to fathers' controlling feeding practices are noteworthy because of the negative implications controlling parental feeding practices can have on child outcomes. The prediction of paternal feeding behaviors from assessments conducted prenatally has important intervention implications.

Fathers' food parenting: A scoping review of the literature from 1990 to 2019

“…In these studies, full‐time employment, 50,53 lower educational status, 50 and lower perceived responsibility for feeding children 84 is linked with fathers' use of more controlling feeding strategies. One longitudinal study found that more secure father attachment assessed prenatally predicts greater responsive feeding practices with their 8‐month‐old infant 85 . Finally, a minority of studies examined the interplay between mothers and fathers in the context of food parenting.…”

Barriers and enablers to caregivers' responsive feeding behaviour: A systematic review to inform childhood obesity prevention

“…The majority of studies were conducted in the USA ( n = 20), 24–43 followed by Australia ( n = 10), 44–53 United Kingdom ( n = 8), 54–61 New Zealand ( n = 1), 62 Norway ( n = 2), 63,64 and Sweden ( n = 1) 65 . Thirty‐four studies, reported in 33 papers, employed a quantitative design, including RCTs of an intervention ( n = 5), 32,39,50,62,63 observational cohort studies ( n = 8), 24,27–29,35,54,59,60 cross‐sectional studies ( n = 11), 24,30,38,41–44,46,48,53,64 a case–control study, 26 a within‐subject experimental study, 40 a quasi‐experimental study, 51 and observational descriptive/measurement development 31 . Six studies undertook secondary analyses; two used cross‐sectional data, 25,37 two studies used data from observational cohort studies, 33,45 one used control group data, 34 and one used data from an RCT 36 .…”

“…The quantitative non‐randomised studies all included participants who were representative of the target population 28,30,31,40,41,51 . The quantitative descriptive studies were generally well conducted although it was not always possible to ascertain sample representativeness 26,27,29,33,34,37,38,44,45,48,53,59,60,64 . Some of the quantitative descriptive studies focused on participants from particular groups such as infants who had been adopted, 33 and as such, these findings are not generalizable.…”

“…Barriers and enablers to responsive feeding that were related to automatic motivation were evident in 12 studies, 27,28,37,38,43,44,48,49,52,57,60,61,65 which were categorised into (1) caregiver emotions and (2) parental internal cues.…”

The correlation between maternal mealtime behaviors and children’s body mass index

“…In the relevant literature, studies done with fathers are limited and those that recruited fathers generally focused on well-educated fathers and growing level of responsibility for children's eating and feeding practices was explained to be correlated with education. [37][38][39][40] However; there is no study that investigates effects of fathers, their age, education level and other demographic characteristics upon maternal feeding practices and decisions.…”