Controlling feeding practices: cause or consequence of early child weight?
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.
Farrow
Claire Victoria
CV
School of Psychology, Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, United Kingdom. c.v.farrow@lboro.ac.uk
Blissett
Jacqueline
J
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