Parental Feeding, Child Eating and Physical Activity: Differences in Children Living with and without Asthma

Abstract

This study aimed to establish the differences in parental attitudes toward feeding and activity, as well as child eating and activity levels, between families of children living with and without asthma. Parents of children and young people aged between 10 and 16 years living both with asthma (n = 310) and without asthma (n = 311) completed measures for parental feeding, parental attitudes toward child exercise, child eating, child activity level and asthma control. Children living with asthma had a significantly higher BMIz (BMI standardised for weight and age) score, were significantly more likely to emotionally overeat and desired to drink more than their peers without asthma. Parents of children with asthma reported greater use of food to regulate emotions, restriction of food for weight control, monitoring of child activity, pressure to exercise and control over child activity. When asthma symptoms were controlled, parental restriction of food for weight management predicted greater child BMIz scores, and higher child activity predicted lower child BMIz scores. These relationships were not found to be significant for children with inadequately controlled asthma. Differences in parental attitudes toward feeding and exercise, and child eating and exercise behaviors, between families may help to explain the increased obesity risk for children with asthma.

Exercise and asthma – trigger or treatment?

“…Further, a recent large birth cohort study by Eijkemans et al [28] reported that whilst physical activity at early school age was not associated with asthma development later in life, sedentary activity time was associated with worse lung function (i.e., lower FEV 1 /FVC ratio). Several recent studies also report an association between BMI, physical activity engagement and asthma control [13,14,[29][30][31][32][33][34]. Indeed, Zhang et al [35] highlighted that physical activity is associated with improved asthma control in children, particularly in those with a high BMI.…”

Assessment of the Physical Activity of Children with Asthma Bronchiale

“…Magnus and colleagues [ 23 ], in a study of more than 24,000 children, found that accelerated weight gain from birth to 3 years of age positively influenced the development of asthma. Clarke and colleagues found significantly higher BMI values, standardized for body weight and age, in children with asthma who were also significantly more likely to be emotionally overeating than their healthy peers [ 24 ].…”