Obesity, Child‐Feeding Attitudes, and Reactive Eating: An Intergenerational Study

Abstract

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.

Paternal Child‐Feeding Attitudes and Obesity in School‐Age Sons

“…(1980). The present study agrees with others in the literature Owen & Kram, 1974;Rogers et al,1980) that both fathers and mothers tend to use food as a reward for their r children's behavior. In addition, mothers and fathers who tend to regard favorably the use of food as a reward also tend to regard its use as a soothing agent and an expression of affection in a favorable way.…”

“…Instrumentation For the purpose of this study, attitude is defined as an enduring system of positive or negative evaluations, emotional feelings, and pro or con tendencies with respect to a social object (Krech, Crutchfield, & Eallachey,1962). To determine the child-feeding attitudes of fathers, the study utilized a child-feeding opinion questionnaire based on one developed by Rogers et al (1980). The original questionnaire was a Likert-type, 55-item instrument designed to assess the child-feeding attitudes of mothers and their college-age daughters.…”

“…Several studies cite the effect of the use of food in a behavioral situation on the formation of children's food preferences (Birch, Zimmerman, & Hind, 1980;Rogers, Canady, & Wentworth, 1980). Rogers et al (1980) examined the maternal use of food in relation to the lean or obese status of college-age daughters.…”

“…Rogers et al (1980) examined the maternal use of food in relation to the lean or obese status of college-age daughters. Four behavioral situations with maternal use of food as (a) a reward, (b) a punishment, (c) a soothing agent, or (d) an expression of affection were assessed in relation to triceps skinfold thickness in the daughter.…”

Parental influences on children's diets

“…Whether similar 'food myths' might be transmitted from parent to child has yet to be explored. A study on obesity, which included measures of attitudes towards child-feeding among college women and their parents (Rogers et al 1980), showed a degree of concordance on the use of food as a punishment (i.e. withholding food (r 0-20) and for soothing ( r 0.15) but not for the other two attitudinal items.…”