Maternal core beliefs and children's feeding problems

Abstract

There appears to be a clear role for maternal core beliefs in the reporting of feeding difficulties in children, and the specificity of these links differs depending on the gender of the child. Further research is required to establish the direction of causality and the specificity of these relationships.

Maternal mental health and child feeding problems in a non-clinical group

“…Mealtime negativity and food refusal scores are broadly comparable to those reported by Blissett et al (2005) in a non-clinical sample of mothers of preschool children with a mean age of 38 months. The EDI scores reflect a non-clinical group, where eating psychopathology scores are typically low, and indeed this sample"s scores are similar to those collected for a non-clinical sample of women with a mean age of 31 (Berman, Lam & Goldner, 1993).…”

“…Research which assesses only one element of symptomology may be confounded by participants" possession of symptoms from other diagnoses, which may be equally likely to affect the parent-child relationship within the context of feeding. Blissett, Meyer, Farrow, Bryant-Waugh & Nicholls (2005) suggested that different expectations for social norms for male and female children, and maternal anxiety about achieving these ideals, may help to explain the different relationships between mental health and reported problems for mothers of girls and boys. The parent"s anxiety about the child"s achievement of specific gender-linked goals, such as the achievement of slimness by girls and greater height and weight by boys (Hill & Franklin, 1998;Pierce & Wardle, 1993;Tiggemann, & Lowes, 2002), may be associated with carrying out gender-specific parenting practices designed to facilitate the achievement of these goals, such as pressurizing or controlling food intake, despite their ultimately negative outcome (Costanzo & Woody, 1985;Fisher & Birch, 1999).…”

Maternal and paternal controlling feeding practices with male and female children

“…Maternal eating psychopathology has been consistently related to feeding disturbance in children, (e.g. Coulthard, Blissett & Harris, 2004), and it has been suggested that there may be different motivations for maternal use of controlling feeding practices with male and female children, which may be linked to maternal eating psychopathology (Blissett, Meyer, Farrow, Bryant-Waugh & Nicholls, 2005). It has been suggested that the links between parental eating concerns and child feeding are more likely to be transmitted from mother to daughter, than through fathers, or to sons (Fisher & Birch, 1999;Smolak et al, 1999;Wertheim et al, 1999).…”

The mediating role of eating psychopathology in the relationship between unhealthy core beliefs and feeding difficulties in a nonclinical group

“…16 As a result, it has been suggested that underlying cognitive features common to these mental health problems, rather than their symptoms, may be the trigger for maladaptive parental behavior that exacerbates and maintains feeding problems. 17 One conceptualization of such cognitive features is that of early maladaptive schemas or ''core beliefs. '' 18 Unhealthy core beliefs are hypothesized to develop as a result of early negative interpersonal experiences with family and peers, and guide later evaluations of and expectations about the self and important interpersonal relationships.…”