Over 10% of children ages two to five have obesity, and these children are five times more likely than others to face obesity in adulthood. Research has suggested that stress and parental feeding practices play an influential role in childhood obesity. For example, dictating when, what, and how much a child eats can have negative impacts on eating habits, leading to a greater risk of developing obesity. Past studies have found parents who pressure children to eat certain foods can inadvertently increase a child’s dislike of those foods. For instance, a parent advocating to eat broccoli can lead to a child’s distaste of broccoli over time. This can result in adverse impacts on children’s long term food preferences, including healthy foods, and self-regulatory behaviors related to eating. How parents approach feeding practices and the factors that impact these behaviors are therefore important to explore to better understand the issue of childhood obesity.
New research from Dr. Doan and colleagues looked into the relationship between stress and parental feeding behaviors in the mother-child dynamic. The team also investigated whether maternal executive functioning (EF)—a set of cognitive abilities essential for tasks like planning, attention, and self-control, which can be impaired by stress—plays a role in this relationship. Eighty mother and child pairs were organized into control and experimental groups. The researchers measured both groups’ executive functioning using a computer game. The researchers then induced a stress response in the mothers in the experimental group by having them give a speech and do mental math in front of an audience. Afterwards, the mothers sat with their children during a snack break, where the children were offered pretzels, gummy bears, and more. The researchers observed parent-child interactions during this snack break, assessing the mothers’ controlling feeding behavior.
In line with past research, this study found a significant relationship between mothers’ stress and controlling behavior. Overall, stressed mothers exhibited more controlling feeding behaviors than those in the control group. However, when focusing on just mothers with high EF scores, this relationship did not hold. In other words, high EF buffered the effects of stress on mothers’ controlling feeding behaviors. This research provides strong evidence that stress shapes parents’ feeding habits, and that this link depends on EF abilities. This study and its findings, published in the research journal Appetite, provide key insight for understanding the factors shaping how parents feed their children, establishing a strong foundation for future research in this area.