title: Controlling feeding practices: cause or consequence of early child weight?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The exertion of control during child feeding has been associated with both underweight and overweight during childhood. What is as-yet unclear is whether controlling child feeding practices causally affect child weight or whether the use of control may be a reactive response to concerns about high or low child weight. The aims of this study were to explore the direction of causality in these relationships during infancy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty-two women gave informed consent to take part in this longitudinal study that spanned from birth to 2 years of child age. Mothers completed the Child Feeding Questionnaire at 1 year, and their children were weighed at 1 and 2 years of age. Child weight scores were converted into standardized z scores that accounted for child age and gender.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Controlling for child weight at 1 year, the use of pressure to eat and restriction at 1 year significantly predicted lower child weight at 2 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Controlling feeding practices in infancy have an impact on children's weight at 2 years. The use of restrictive child feeding practices during infancy predicts lower child weight at age 2 years, which may reinforce mothers' use of this strategy in the longer term despite its potential association with disinhibition and greater child weight in later childhood.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. c.v.farrow@lboro.ac.uk
authors.forename: Claire Victoria
authors.initials: CV
authors.lastname: Farrow
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Blissett
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001724:Birth Weight; D015992:Body Mass Index; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007225:Infant Food; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009765:Obesity / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011336:Probability; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires