Retrospective reports of childhood feeding in mother-daughter dyads
Section snippets
Feeding practices and eating outcomes
Extensive research links specific food parenting practices to children's eating behaviors. One important aspect of eating that is often studied is eating in response to, or in the absence of, hunger (e.g., emotional eating and intuitive eating). Broadly, emotional eating is defined as eating in response to negative affect, regardless of hunger (Faith, Allison, & Geliebter, 1997). Conversely, intuitive eating is defined as eating when hungry and stopping when satiated (Van Dyke & Drinkwater, 2014
Adult outcomes
Although links between feeding practices and children's eating and weight have been well explored, far less research has looked at how childhood feeding is linked to eating in adolescence and adulthood. The few studies that have asked about recollections of childhood food environment have found similar trends as seen in childhood. Two studies have demonstrated a relation between childhood food parenting practices and eating disorder symptoms in adolescence. These studies suggest that childhood
The current study
Research focusing on how childhood feeding relates to longer-term outcomes is sparse. However, existing research suggests that the link between food parenting and adult outcomes may have important implications for eating and health. Further, prior research has suggested that mothers often have a predominant role in feeding children (Blissett, Meyer, & Haycraft, 2006), and that, compared to sons, mothers' feeding may have more influence on daughters' later eating habits (Rodgers, Faure, &
Participants
Participants were 336 mothers and 263 daughters, which included 217 dyads. Participants were from the province of Quebec, Canada. Participants were recruited by a professional survey firm. Mothers' ages ranged from 34 to 79 years (M = 56.62; SD = 8.81), and daughters’ ages ranged from 18 to 40 years (M = 29.13; SD = 6.65 years). Most participants (97% of mothers and 94% of daughters) identified as White. Regarding education, 39% of mothers and 50% of daughters earned a college degree or higher.
Factor analysis and scale formation
Across the factor analysis for the sample of mothers, eight items loaded below 0.4 on all factors and were therefore excluded from the final measure. See Table 1 for the final factor structure and factor loadings. To facilitate comparative analyses, we developed a single factor structure for both mothers and daughters. The factor loadings varied between mothers and daughters on four of the subscales: monitoring, restriction for health, child control, and modeling. As daughters were reporting on
Discussion
This study was an initial effort to examine the validity of retrospective reports of parental feeding practices, both using factor analysis and comparing the reports of mothers and their adult daughters, as well as how those reports relate to adult daughters’ eating behaviors and BMI. Overall, the results lend strong support to the use of retrospective reports on this construct and provide evidence that recalled childhood feeding practices have lasting relations with adult eating behaviors.
The
Acknowledgement
The present study was supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The second author is supported by a Junior 1 Research Career Award from the “Fonds de la recherche du Québec–Santé” (FRQS).
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Use of a brief, retrospective Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire in a bariatric-surgery seeking adult population
2022, Eating BehaviorsCitation Excerpt :Roberts et al. in 2020 found that among a sample of healthy-weight mother-daughter dyads the use of a modified and retrospective CFPQ containing all 12-subscales demonstrated some similarity between dyads of mothers and their adult daughters, each reporting retrospectively on their perception of the mothers' feeding practices during the daughters' childhoods. Although, in this sample 11 factors were found to be a better fit than the originally proposed 12 and significant differences between mother and daughter recollections were observed on 5 of the 11 subscales (Roberts et al., 2020). While still preliminary, retrospective modifications of the previously validated CFPQ questionnaire have allowed for the potential to interrogate the perceived origins of an individuals' feeding behaviors as reported on by the individual themselves.
Mothers' experiences of their own parents' food parenting practices and use of coercive food-related practices with their children
2022, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :Overall, there is compelling evidence to suggest a lasting relationship between childhood experiences of being provided food as a child and later eating behaviours. Although adult reports are based on recalled experience, Roberts, Carbonneau, Goodman, and Musher-Eizenman (2020) provide support for the use of retrospective reporting of childhood experiences of being provided food as a child. In summary, experiences of being provided food as a child appears to influence adult eating behaviours.
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2022, AppetiteCitation Excerpt :Although Musher-Eizenman et al. (2018) found that covert restriction aligned with controlling feeding practices, other researchers (e.g., Vaughn et al., 2016) have argued for covert restriction to be included in measures of structure rather than restriction. In the longer term, it may be that only overt restriction is associated with maladaptive eating (e.g., Roberts et al., 2020). Future work should explore this finding in more depth, in the context of ongoing work to establish which feeding practices have negative outcomes and which are useful strategies to help structure the food environment and support the development of children's eating behaviours.
A look at the intergenerational associations between self-compassion, body esteem, and emotional eating within dyads of mothers and their adult daughters
2020, Body ImageCitation Excerpt :Most dyads (73.3 %) were not living together at the time of the study. Participants were part of a larger study on the social factors that influence women’s attitudes and behaviors related to eating and body image (see also Roberts, Carbonneau, Goodman, & Musher-Eizenman, 2020). The complete list of measures can be found on the Open Science Framwork.
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