1-008 - Family Matters: Exploring Attachment Orientation and Parenting Style in the Domain of Child Feeding

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Unhealthy eating habits that develop during childhood, such as emotional eating and eating beyond satiety, often continue into adulthood, putting some children at risk for obesity and long-term health consequences. Past research has examined parental feeding practices and the role they play in children’s eating habits, but there is more to the parent-child feeding relationship than the feeding practices that parents engage in. The goal of this symposium is to better understand parental influences on children’s eating behaviors by contextualizing these feeding practices within the global parent-child relationship. Specifically, papers in this symposium employ various methodologies with varying age groups to investigate how parents’ attachment orientation and parenting style relate to the domain of child feeding.

The first paper examines whether parents’ attachment insecurity moderates the association between parental feeding practices and children’s emotional eating. The second paper explores the association between feeding practices and authoritarian, authoritative and permissive parenting styles. The final paper probes parenting style further by investigating the relations between the parenting style dimensions of psychological and behavioral control, parental feeding practices, and children’s overresponsive and emotional eating behaviors.

This symposium will contribute to our understanding of why parents engage in specific feeding practices, especially those that are linked to negative child outcomes. These papers will also raise significant and timely questions about the role of the global parent-child relationship in socializing children’s eating behaviors. In addition, this research will further bridge the gap between researchers who study developmental psychology and those who study pediatric health.

Sub Unit

• Health, Growth, Injury

Chair

• Shayla C Holub, University of Texas at Dallas

Discussant

• Dara Robin Musher-Eizenman, Bowling Green State University

Individual Presentations

• The Moderating Role of Mothers’ Adult Attachment Orientation on Controlling Feeding Practices and Children’s Emotional Eating - Presenting Author: Cin Cin Tan, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

• Associations between Parenting Styles and Parental Feeding Practices in School-age Children - Presenting Author: Debra Hoffmann, Bowling Green State University; Allison Kiefner-Burmeister, University of Findlay; Samantha Holt, Bowling Green State University; Dara Robin Musher-Eizenman, Bowling Green State University

• Psychological Control in the Parent-Child Feeding Relationship - Presenting Author: Shayla C Holub, University of Texas at Dallas; Sarah Hinkley, University of Texas at Dallas