New study links coercive food practices to emotional overeating in preschoolers

A study published in Appetite sheds light on the potential impact of parenting practices involving food on children’s emotional and eating behaviors. Researchers at the University of North Florida found that coercive food practices are associated with poorer emotional regulation in preschoolers, which in turn is linked to emotional overeating.

The preschool years are a formative time for both emotional regulation and eating habits, as children develop greater autonomy and begin interacting more with peers. Emotional overeating—eating in response to negative emotions like stress or frustration—is known to be associated with unhealthy eating patterns, weight issues, and potential eating disorders later in life. Previous studies have suggested that coercive feeding practices, such as using food to manage behavior or emotions, may encourage emotional overeating. However, the mechanisms underlying this relationship remain unclear.

The new study aimed to explore whether these feeding practices are linked to emotional overeating through their impact on children’s ability to regulate their emotions. Additionally, the researchers sought to determine if these practices were similarly linked to emotional undereating, which is often considered a more natural stress response in young children.

The study involved 221 mothers of four- and five-year-old children recruited through online platforms Amazon Mechanical Turk and Prolific. Participants completed surveys assessing their feeding practices, their child’s emotional regulation abilities, and the child’s emotional eating behaviors. Only mothers were included to maintain consistency, as mothers are often primary caregivers and may differ from fathers in their feeding approaches.

The researchers assessed four coercive food practices:

1. Using food to regulate emotions: Offering food to calm or comfort a child when upset.
2. Using food as a reward: Providing food as a reward for desired behavior or withholding it as a punishment.
3. Emotional feeding: Offering food during emotionally charged situations regardless of hunger.
4. Instrumental feeding: Using food to encourage or discourage specific behaviors.

Children’s emotional regulation was measured using a validated checklist that assessed their ability to manage the intensity, duration, and expression of emotions. Emotional overeating and undereating were assessed through a questionnaire examining how often children ate more or less than usual in response to emotions.

The researchers found that all four coercive food practices were associated with poorer emotional regulation in children. Poor emotional regulation, in turn, was linked to increased emotional overeating. These findings support the idea that using food as a tool to manage emotions may teach children to rely on eating as a coping mechanism instead of developing more adaptive strategies for managing their feelings.

Interestingly, while coercive food practices were also linked to emotional undereating, this relationship was not mediated by emotional regulation. This suggests that emotional undereating is less influenced by learned behaviors from parents and may instead stem from biological stress responses.

The researchers also controlled for general food responsiveness—children’s tendency to eat in response to external food cues like the sight or smell of food. Even after accounting for this factor, emotional regulation remained a significant mediator, indicating that the connection between parenting practices and emotional overeating was not simply due to a general desire for food but was specifically tied to emotional coping strategies.

Although the findings highlight important links between parenting practices, emotional regulation, and eating behaviors, the study has some limitations. First, it relied on self-reported data from mothers, which may not always accurately reflect actual behaviors. Observational studies could provide a more objective view of parent-child interactions related to feeding and emotion regulation.

Additionally, the study was cross-sectional, meaning it captured a single point in time rather than changes over time. Longitudinal research is needed to determine whether coercive feeding practices lead to poorer emotional regulation and emotional overeating, or whether these behaviors influence each other in a reciprocal way. Future studies could also investigate the role of fathers and other caregivers in shaping children’s emotional and eating behaviors.

The study, “Parent’s use of coercive control practices with food is associated with poorer emotion regulation and increased emotional overeating in preschoolers,” was authored by Lindsay N. Baker and Anita J. Fuglestad.