Socioeconomic Position and Picky Eating Behavior Predict Disparate Weight Trajectories in Infancy

Abstract

Infant weight gain has long-term implications for the establishment of overall health. We examined whether socioeconomic position (SEP), the use of pressure as a feeding practice, and picky eating relate to changes infant in weight-for-length (WFL). A modified developmental design was used to examine whether current levels of child picky eating, parental use of pressure, and SEP were associated with changes in WFL during infancy. Health providers distributed survey packets during routine well-child visits made in the homes of families with young children in New Zealand (n = 193). Primary caregivers of young children provided their child's current level of picky eating, their use of pressure, and their SEP. They also reported their child's professionally-measured WFL from birth, 8, 15, and 21 months of age. A multi-level modeling analysis yielded an interaction between SEP and picky eating in predicting infant weight change over time. Children who had a low SEP and were not picky eaters were on the highest WFL trajectory and children who had a low SEP and were picky eaters were lowest on the WFL trajectory. A main effect revealed that higher levels of parental pressure predicted lower WFL in infants at each age, but did not interact with SEP or picky eating. Findings from this study indicate that the combination of eating behavior and SEP are associated with differential infant growth patterns. These results suggest that eating behavior and SEP should be included in the development of interventions designed to achieve healthy weight during childhood.

Infant Appetitive Phenotypes: A Group-Based Multi-Trajectory Analysis

“…A small number of studies from the United Kingdom and the United States have used person-centered approaches to identify appetitive phenotypes in childhood (1,(16)(17)(18)(19), with some (1,13,18,20,21) examining appetitive phenotype trajectories or changes over time. In cross-sectional research, Boutelle et al (13) identified three phenotypes from a combination of behavioral and self-report measures on a sample of 8-to 12-year-old North American children who were seeking treatment for overweight or obesity.…”

“…Clairman et al ( 22) also reported on three distinct phenotype groups in using multiple measures of appetite in overweight children/adolescents in Canada. Galloway et al (20) reported three profiles of fussy eating based on scores from five subscales from the Children's Eating Behaviour Questionnaire (CEBQ). These studies have demonstrated how person-centered analyses of cross-sectional data can use multiple measures of appetitive behavior to create phenotypes, with these phenotypes highlighting individual subgroup differences in possible mechanisms in appetite self-regulation.…”

Correlation of Picky Eating in Children’s Growth: A Systematic Review

“…It is especially important to note that the odds ratios are not comparable in magnitude across study designs-for example, one study finding that overweight kids are five times as likely to be picky does not mean that picky kids are five times as likely to be over or under weight. Even in studies that found a relationship between picky eating and overweight like the article that made by (Taylor, Steer, Hays, & Emmett, 2018) Also, most studies did not clearly report possible effect modifiers e.g., types of foods offered to the child, parenting styles, oral nutritional supplementation, growth (Ghosh et al, 2018), nutritional status, development, physical activity, and health (Chao, 2018), sosioeconomy (Galloway et al, 2018) parent weight status) that could affect the relationship between eating behaviors and weight status. Other limitations that may affect the cumulative evidence in this systematic review include publication bias and the risk of selective reporting within studies.…”

“…Of the 15 studies reviewed, 9 articles were found which mentioned a positive relationship between eating and growth and the 6 articles mentioned were not related. From 9 articles that positively related to the growth of children, 3 articles mentioned the correlation in increasing body weight and 6 articles mentioned the correlation between the occurrence of weight loss (Chao, 2018;Galloway, Watson, Pitama, Farrow, & Llewellyn, 2018;Kwon, Shim, Kang, & Paik, 2017;Viljakainen, Figueiredo, Rounge, & Weiderpass, 2019;Volger et al, 2017). 6 articles that are negatively related, mention that the growth of children remains stable or normal but only related to diet or nutritional intake is even just an excessive concern by parents.…”

Child involvement in meal preparation and grocery shopping is associated with lower levels of food fussiness among young children

“…Research suggests that food parenting practices, such as child food involvement, as well as child fussy eating may differ by socio-economic status (Galloway, Watson, Pitama, and Farrow, 2018;Matheson, Robinson, Varady, and Killen, 2006), so household income was included as a covariate in our models, assessed by a single item "What is the total annual income of your household before taxes? Your household D r a f t income includes income from you and anyone who lives with you who depends on the same income.…”