When 20 morphosyntactic variables are considered collectively , there is no positive effect. In other words, variable contexts do not correlate with measurable production difficulties. These results challenge the view that grammatical variability is somehow sub-optimal for speakers, with additional burdensome cognitive planning.The following paper explores the link between production difficulty and grammatical variability. Using a sub-sample of the Switchboard Corpus of American English , this paper shows that the presence of variable contexts does not positively correlate with two metrics of production difficulty, namely filled pauses ( This paper introduces a new research agenda aimed at exploring the link between language complexity and variation as inherent properties of language use. Specifically, we assess the complexity incurred by having to choose between competing grammatical variants.always entails plenty of choice-making—but rather, because grammatical variation  is conditioned probabilistically by any number of contextual constraints. For example, Bresnan et al. , would really hate to give up, um, good quality sneaks for a better price, but somebody like me, who’s not used to having good quality sneaks, would hate to pay more for better quality sneaks.Somebody like you, that, 59 tokens (29%) are introduced by a wh-form.In the data from young South Midland females, there are 206 tokens of nonrestrictive relative clauses; 147 tokens (71%) are introduced by -er (15a), or analytically with the addition of the adverb more (15b) [In English, comparative adjectives can be formed synthetically using the suffix re (15b) , 117.(15)awarmer and stuff.I love going outside and stuff when it’s bmore scary just because it’s a big city.I think in Dallas it’s a lot Only comparative adjectives that vary in their use of either a synthetic or analytical form in the overall dataset are included in our analysis. Among the young Midlands female speakers there are only 32 tokens of these adjectives, of which 18 (56%) are synthetic comparatives.to be agreement is a widespread feature of English varieties. Here, we focus on variation between singular is/was and plural are/were with plural subjects, as in (16). Though this variation may occur for all subject types, it is most common for plural existentials with there [Non-standard th there –120; the(16)there’s some places, and I would- and I would- don’t- this would be a- a big minus for the places, there are some places that state that you cannot come in unannounced. Right because then is/was.In the data from the young female South Midland speakers there are 53 instances of plural existentials; 40 tokens (75%) occur with singular will and semi-modal be going to are the most common in Modern English, as in (17). Minor variants include shall, present progressive, fixing to, etc., [The English tense system does not include a morphological future tense. Instead, it only distinguishes between past and non-past . In ordeo, etc., , 121–124(17)will happen, you know, it’s just going to take- it’s just going to take a lot of education and a lot of time.I think eventually it be going to, 385 tokens (61%) are will, 1 token is shall, 2 are fixing to, and the remaining 10 are simple present/present progressive.There are 630 tokens of future temporal reference in the data from young South Midland females; 232 tokens (38%) are must, have to, have got to, got to, or need to, as in (18) [In English, deontic modality is usually expressed using one of five forms:  in (18) , 126. As(18)amust admit I- I used to try to watch it.I bneeds to be done, sometimes you have to fill out the five forms in triplicate in order to to get it done.When you see a a job that cgot to find where you fit in best.It’s like you d’ve got to have good adult mentors.You(19)’s got to be the most common thing that people- yeah, it’s “Oh it’s empty. It’s empty.” “Boom!” You know.Yeah put the safety on the gun. Don’t assume- always assume it’s loaded that’s- thathave to (68%), 55 tokens of need to (17%), 19 tokens of got to (6%), 16 tokens of have got to (5%), and 12 tokens of must (4%).Of the 330 deontic modality tokens from young South Midland females there are 228 tokens of have, have got, or got, as in (20) [possess, hold (a degree), be endowed with, etc. As with the two previous variables, this variation exists only in present tense contexts.Stative possession is usually expressed using one of three forms:  in (20) –129. Sta(20)a’ve got the kits to to put them all in, I don’t have them all yet.Yeah Ibgot a Louisiana accentYou sound like you have (57%), 214 tokens of have got (38%), and 29 tokens of got (5%).A total of 564 stative possessive tokens occur in the South Midland young female data. There are 321 tokens of be like form [say, think, go, ask, tell, and a collection of other semantically rich, yet infrequent, forms like whisper, yell, and retort.The choice of verb for introducing a direct quotation has undergone rapid change in the second-half of the 20th century. Speakers categorized as ‘young’ in 1990, when the Switchboard Corpus was collected, are considered the first generation of robust users of the innovative ike form , 131, etOur extraction criteria are modelled after Tagliamonte & D’Arcy , thus al(21)asay “Huh, you know, why should we vote?”You know, we get this lackadaisical attitude and bwas like, “No way!” and she goes, “Yeah!” She goes, “You know people get broken into a lot because they, you know, it’s real easy to get away with there, you know, no one can see them carrying out the stuff if no one lives nearby.”I cwent, “Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!” you know, and I thought, “Okay.”The coach actually called time out and came and tapped my tail with her foot and said, you know pointed that finger, and dsaid, “Whipped out my little card.”I don’t know. I like that he walks in, you know, and he’s got this little gift and,_____“How’d you pay for it?”_____“Credit.” He, you know, say and think can also introduce indirect speech, usually followed by that. This that complementizer varies with a zero complementizer. We meticulously checked each instance of say/think, etc., to asses whether the token is an instance of a verb of direct quotation, as in (21), or a verb of indirect quotation with a zero complementizer, as in (22).Verbs like (22)I asked the vet why he did that and he said_____he was probably weaned too young, which he was, because his mom was killed, so, but he is the lovingest cat.be like and 80 tokens (7%) of innovative go  are say, 13 (11%) are think, 8 (7%) are go, 13 (11%) have no overt quotative, and the remaining 14 (12%) are some other quotative verb.Buchstaller  previoussee also ). Both fnot and any-.In English there are three equivalent negative structures, as in (23)anot any push to recycleThere’s just bnobody to- to sit them down and say, “You’re going to do this.”There’s cnot nobody can take care of your kids better than you There’s a/an instead of any; that are pre-verbal indefinites; that are general extenders; or with negated adjectives.Excluded from this variation, based on Childs  , 44 are no-negation (23%), and the remaining 2 are negative concord (1%).In the young South Midland female data there are 195 variable contexts: 149 are had, has, have, will, would, is, are, and am can be contracted on the right side of a subject NP. Likewise, not, can be contracted with a verb. In Late Modern English not contraction is exclusive to auxiliary and modal verbs. This gives rise to variation between auxiliary/modal contraction, as in he’s (24a), and not contraction, as in isn’t (24b) [In English the auxiliaries ’t (24b) , 141.(24)awouldn’t admit to you that he doesn’t like it, but it, you know, he’s not doing good and he never is excited about it or anything, and he won’t tell his parents.I mean, he b’s not very fun- fun- fun- you know, that’s not very far to run and a month isn’t very longThatcain’t how it works, baby.You know it’s supposed to be all for one and one for all, but that am cannot be contracted with not in mainstream North American English, so forms such as I’m not are outside the envelope of variation. The contracted first person form is, however, one possible origin of ain’t . not contractions. Of the not contraction forms only 1 is ain’t.There are 500 contexts in the young South Midland female data where this variation can occur. Of these contexts, 201 (40%) are auxiliary contractions, and 299 (60%) are A number of critical questions may be raised concerning our methodology (and we are grateful to our reviewers for pointing them out):Why is the unit of analysis in our study chunks of text/speech , and not individual choice points? It is important to emphasize that the dependent variables in our study are two measures of disfluency: filled and unfilled pauses. We predict these disfluencies based on, among other things, the number of grammatical variable contexts within the nearby linguistic environment. It is nearly impossible to define the precise syntactic or discursive points at which disfluencies could occur. The reason is that disfluencies can occur pretty much anytime, anywhere. We would therefore need to consider an infinite number of potential choice points, which is not operational. Further, as is well attested in the psycholinguistic literature , speechWhy do we not control for syntactic priming? Isn’t priming relevant for determining how much choice and control the speaker actually has? As customary in the corpus-based literature on priming [x but other probabilistic constraints favor choice of variant y. More generally, in this study we focus on the effect of the presence of variable contexts , without modeling these choices themselves . priming , 144, weWhat is the rationale for treating all variation contexts the same, regardless of the context-specific probability that a particular variant is chosen? On practical grounds, we are working with aggregated data (see above), and operationalizing details of each individual variable context is non-trivial. There is no baseline measure of the “choicy-ness” associated with specific contexts in which our 20 variables occur. The probability of a variant of a variable for a specific speaker, in a specific turn, in this specific data, is an empirical question, not something known a priori. On more theoretical grounds, the assumption underlying this question is that variation contexts where one variant has a high probability of occurring are somehow less “choicy” than, say, variation contexts where all variants have roughly the same probability of occurring. This is certainly an interesting hypothesis that needs to be tested in separate research. However, we assert that regardless of what the relationship between probability and “choicy-ness” is, speakers must, in any event, first recognize variable contexts and then identify and weigh the constellation of linguistic  factors that influence (however strongly) the choice of variant in the given context. The same process necessarily occurs for all loci of variation, and presumably increases cognitive load—though this is exactly what we aim to test. In short, in the absence of empirical research addressing the issue of “choicy-ness” we prefer to err on the side of conservativeness by making fewer assumptions and treating all variation contexts the same.The first challenge in exploring the relationship between processing difficulty and variability involves deciding how to model the number of variable contexts in the data, as well as the two measures of disfluency. The distribution of each of these three variables—number of variable contexts, number of filled pauses, amount of silence—poses a problem for regression analysis.N = 3,468) or containing no variable contexts .Across our sub-sample of 285 audio files there were 7,161 total turns. Across the data, 6,268 variable contexts occur; however, they are restricted to just 3,468 (48%) turns see . FurtherN = 2,161) or not containing  at least one filled pause.Similarly, the distribution of filled pauses is zero-bound and heavily right-skewed. As Finally, for unfilled pauses, the mean amount of silence per word per turn is 0.11 ± 0.08 s, represented by the dashed line in lme4 package in R [car [MuMin [JGmermod [To determine effect directions we employ regression analysis. For the binary variable presence vs. absence of filled pauses we employ mixed-effects logistic regression using the age in R , 146. Wen R [car ; MuMin [r [MuMin ; JGmermoJGmermod . For theJGmermod ). Each oBefore we present our regression analyses, it is important to note that we performed multiple parallel and often more complex analyses to ensure that our findings are robust in the face of various modeling decisions. These included regressions in which we treated both number of filled pauses and number of variable contexts as ordinal rather than binary. We also fitted models including the number of types of variable contexts per turn rather than overall number of variable contexts. We measured unfilled pauses in different ways, including testing total silence per turn, number of silences greater than a certain threshold per turn, and silence as a percentage of turn length. We tested random slopes in addition to random intercepts and included specific audio file as an additional random effect. These analyses required us to use a handful of alternative regression techniques . None of these parallel analyses revealed materially different patterns or statistically better fits to the data than those reported below. Following Occam’s razor we present these less complex regressions as, we contest, they are the most clearly illustrative of the phenomena under investigation.no variable contexts), as well as the three predictors listed in Um’s and uh’s are more likely when speakers are speaking slowly, or when they are using (on average) shorter words. Conversely, overt disfluencies are less likely when speakers are speaking quickly and using, on average, longer words. Both findings are somewhat counter-intuitive. But note that causality is unclear: rather than slow speech and usage of shorter words triggering disfluencies, perhaps disfluencies coincide with slow speech and usage of shorter words (cf. [rds (cf. ).not vs. no negation. The effect for these too was negative, indicating the presence of these variable contexts decreases the likelihood of a filled pause.Though non-significant, the effect of variable context is also negative, suggesting that there are fewer filled pauses in turns in which variable contexts occur. But what about individual linguistic variables? We hypothesized that highly salient linguistic variables or alternations with overt style prescriptions would coincide with higher rates of disfluency. In our list of 20 variables these were quotatives and coordinated pronouns. As randomForest package in R [tuneRF function in the randomForest package. The relative importance (i.e. success), of each predictor was determined using the permimp [C-index/AUROC, were calculated using the caret [ROCR [C-index/AUROC (area under the receiver-operator curve) of 0.72 is considered acceptable discrimination [To determine the relative importance of predictors we subject the data to random forest analysis as implemented by the age in R . This alage in R , 154. We permimp  package.he caret  and ROCRet [ROCR  packageset [ROCR , 165. A mination , 162 [16mination , 259.not vs. no negation are successful predictors. The former was not identified in not vs. no negation in the random forest, suggests that while these predictors may be correlated to the presence of filled pauses, they do not explain much of the variation. Of note, when additional forests were constructed using different sets of randomly generated trees , the three control variables were consistently top ranked and in the same order, while anywhere from one to nine different linguistic variables showed some small, randomly ordered importance. In no tree was the overall number of variable contexts a successful predictor. This is far from the significant positive correlation we would expect to find if the presence of linguistic variation truly increased cognitive load.prima facie intuition that the longer a turn, the more potential there is for a variable context to occur—in other words, that these two predictors are collinear. But this is not necessarily the case. The variable inflation factors for find.interaction function in the randomForestSRC package [There is a  package  , whet al. [Tables et al.  did findlme4 package in R no longer generates p-values to assess the significance of predictors in linear regression . To att package  to compuedictors , howeverIt is notable that the two variables we hypothesized above to require additional extra-grammatical consideration , the rapidly innovating (in the 1990s) variable (quotatives) and the variable with perhaps the most salient, overt prescription (coordinated pronouns)—entailing both morphological and linear order prescriptions—showed either no significant relationship or a significant negative relationship to speech production difficulties. In fact, both correspond to shorter unfilled pauses and to the absence of filled pauses, defying expectations. That being said, the one linguistic feature with a positive effect, nonrestrictive relativizers, is the variable for which some linguists do not believe that variation exists . If the processing of variation adds to this cognitive load it is expected that there would be a positive correlation between disfluency/speech planning time and variable contexts. In fact, this correlation should be significant and strong. Speakers must check the linguistic context for conditioning factors and make complex probabilistic computations to select a grammatical variant—and in contexts of style-shifting or audience design this process additionally exploits an executively-controlled self-monitoring process. Prior to the current investigation the prevailing thought was that this surely must add to cognitive load. Instead, what our investigation has shown is that the processing of the complex probabilistic constraints needed to select a specific grammatical variant does not result in significant measurable production difficulty using two separate metrics: filled and unfilled pauses. Our results directly challenge the intuition that variation must be difficult and complex from a production standpoint. We find that overall the presence of variation poses no measurable effect. With the exception of nonrestrictive relative clauses and unfilled pauses, for the 20 variables under scrutiny, the relationship between the presence of variation and filled pauses and/or length of unfilled pauses is either non-significant, or significant and negative.et al. [As Pouget et al.  point ouet al. ) not onlet al. –172, butet al. –175 and et al. –181 domaWhile we remain agnostic to the precise nature of the mechanism that makes probabilistic constraint-based variant selections in the grammatical encoding process, we propose that this probabilistic computation of variant alternatives is largely automatic. Further, this automatic computation process does not seek out loci of variation but instead evaluates all grammatical structures. This computation must occur for all units within an utterance. That is, some form of computation must occur when planning every aspect of an utterance at all levels of grammar . Likewise, the self-monitoring process must monitor  units at every level of grammar  or ambiguous past tense/past participle forms  and two pictured objects . Participants were more likely to make mistakes  with unambiguous participles, which the authors conclude was due to participle verbs being licit in fewer syntactic structures—unlike the ambiguous forms, unambiguous participles cannot be used for active simple past constructions. Flexibility in the production process facilitated achieving well-formedness.Our findings, however, do align exactly with the conclusions of Engelhardt et al. . In theigive) were produced quicker and more fluently than sentences with verbs that only allow the prepositional dative (like donate). He argues that speakers produce sentences more easily under conditions of syntactic flexibility because it allows the system to accommodate potential differences in activation states for the words involved over time  can facilitate the planning of otherwise complex (and thus difficult to plan) complements  or between shorter/ambiguous variants  and longer/overt variants  provides flexibility to the speaker in spreading out information density  when following material  is otherwise too information dense.The Uniform Information Density hypothesis , 189 preet al. [et al.’s explanation, having the option to express the particle in different locations allows the speaker to reduce production difficulty as needed.Gries  reports et al.  argue thet al.  observatet al. ). Regardet al. [Arnold et al.  report fet al. ). Just let al.  and the et al. [et al. [Finally, syntactic or morphological optionality may facilitate planning as it can provide the needed phonological material for a desired prosodic pattern of the utterance . For example, Shih et al.  find eur [et al.  find the [et al.  for a suum and uh as tools speakers use to signal something  to the listener [A limitation of our analysis is that our metrics of processing difficulty are perhaps unreliable, as disfluent phenomena can serve both discourse functions as well as indicate processing difficulties on behalf of the speaker. The former is called the signal hypothesis, the latter the symptom hypothesis (the starting point for the present study). The signal hypothesis interprets disfluencies like listener , 194–196listener , 197. Ofbe like among young speakers—would be most likely to coincide with production difficulties because the self-monitoring process must evaluate them in light of both the linguistic and social context. The nature of how quotatives are used, however, may explain this finding. Generally direct quotation is associated with narrative [Perhaps our most surprising finding is that presence of a quotative verb does not correspond to the presence of filled pauses or longer speech planning time. This challenges the hypotheses that socially-salient variables—like quotatives in the 1990s  given tOur point of departure in this paper was the suspicion among both language mavens and (some) professional linguists that variation is unexpected, suboptimal, (needlessly) complex, and difficult for language users. But our analysis shows that among young South Midland females, the thusly expected significant positive correlation between the presence of grammatical variable contexts and two metrics of processing difficulty, filled and unfilled pauses, simply cannot be established statistically. We have suggested that the general mechanism for probabilistic variable rule implementation must monitor all components of an utterance, and thus morphosyntactic loci of variation do not uniquely result in any additional burden. Further we have offered several suggestions for why the presence of optionality may actually offset putative production difficulties, mainly through providing flexibility to the speaker in signalling syntactic structure, maximizing efficiency, spreading out information density, minimizing distance between dependent elements, adhering to universal tendencies, and/or aligning syntax to prosody.Given these results, we aim to discover in future enquiries if this pattern persists among men or across different age groups, topics, or American dialect regions in the full Switchboard Corpus. Moving forward we will need to employ additional statistical tests to asses the effect of age, sex, region, education, topic, etc. on this relationship. As to grammatical variation in particular, future work should also investigate if grammatical variables differ in the extent to which they attract or repel disfluencies as a function of the number of probabilistic constraints by which they are conditioned, or as a function of the number of variants that they include. It would also be desirable to include surprisal/entropy and lexical access measures as controls in models predicting disfluencies, and to further consider the exact placement of disfluencies . Finally, our analysis should—needless to say—also be extended to lexical and phonological variables (given ).S1 Data(TXT)Click here for additional data file.S2 Data(HTML)Click here for additional data file.


The majority of the UK’s leisure horses are kept at livery yards, under the oversight of a livery yard manager or owner. Livery yard managers/owners therefore have a major impact on the potential wellbeing of horses within each yard, but their role has not been previously studied. This study used the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens to view the priorities and decisions of livery yard managers at a time when everything was already subject to change. Yard managers/owners of 24 very diverse yards were interviewed over a period of nine months, repeating interviews quarterly. Discussion forum threads on relevant topics about livery yards during COVID-19 were also collected. These data were analysed using a qualitative approach called Grounded Theory. The results showed that running a yard required a careful balance between conflicting priorities, which made change difficult within each individual yard culture. During the pandemic, maintaining usual horse care routines and standards was prioritised above human health and the business model of the yard, and above horse–human relationships. However, each yard adopted individual approaches to managing human health alongside maintaining equine management. These findings are important for future initiatives which aim to support livery yard management and change.n = 48). Discussion threads from open-access UK discussion fora were also analysed. All data were anonymised and analysed using a Grounded Theory methodology. Prior to the pandemic, equine care and management practices varied greatly across yards, and yard cultures were a product of LYO/Ms’ construction of good equine care, their business model, and the need to balance human and equine contentment. The role of the LYO/M was to maintain an equilibrium between those interlinked factors. During the pandemic, LYO/Ms adopted new measures designed to influence the movement of horse owners and other people on yards to minimise the risk of COVID-19 transmission. During this time, LYO/Ms reported prioritising equine wellbeing by limiting change to equine routines and management wherever possible. Instead of altering equine management, there was an expectation that the lives of humans would be moulded and re-shaped to fit with the government COVID-19 guidelines. These results highlight the importance of routines, traditions and cultures in each individual yard. Maintaining the standard of care for the horse was prioritised regardless of who provided that care.Approximately 60% of the UK’s leisure horses are kept at livery yards under the management and oversight of a livery yard owner or manager (LYO/M), yet their role has received little research attention. This study used the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens through which to view LYO/Ms’ decisions around equine care and management at a time when changes to usual practice were necessary. Qualitative research methods were used. Up to 3 interviews were conducted with 24 different LYO/Ms over nine months ( COVID-19 disrupted many aspects of human life during 2020. This disruption yielded an opportunity for reflection about how we structure and prioritise our lives; for example, which aspects of daily life we changed, and which aspects we considered unalterable. In this paper, we consider the impact of the pandemic on the management of horses and ponies in livery yards, and what this tells us about livery yard owners’ and managers’ perceptions of what constitutes good horse care, people management, and management of the livery yard as a business.The majority of the United Kingdom’s (UK) horses are kept away from the owner’s home , predomiLYO/Ms’ decisions therefore affect the wellbeing of the horses in their yard. Some LYO/Ms may promote some aspects of equine wellbeing, such as helping owners to care for their horses or reach their goals , and supThere remain serious concerns about equine welfare in the UK; unrecognised stress, obesity, and delayed euthanasia are examples of serious welfare concerns which have been recognised by stakeholders as urgently needing to be addressed ,9,10,11.Despite the importance of their role in equine welfare, livery yard owners and managers have been overlooked in terms of previous research. The industry is almost entirely unregulated. A few recognition schemes exist; for example, the British Horse Society (BHS) has a livery yard approval scheme , but theThe COVID-19 pandemic and its associated lockdowns had as much of an impact on the equestrian leisure industry as on any other. Most horses are kept away from home, requiring horse owners or livery staff to travel from home, or designate their horse’s care to someone else. While travelling for “animal welfare” purposes was allowed under UK guidelines , there remained aspects of these rules which were unclear—for example, whether exercising the horse remained permissible and whether owners should be allowed to visit their horses and on what basis this should be determined. Many yards made alterations to their practices in order to limit movement on the yard and to allow for social distancing while on the yard .The COVID-19 pandemic therefore represented an unprecedented opportunity to identify how yard owners and managers balance what they perceived as needs of the horses with the rights and responsibilities of the owners, when some of the owners’ rights and responsibilities had been restricted and curtailed through government intervention. This study aimed to study the way in which livery yard managers negotiated the COVID-19 pandemic, and the changes that they considered appropriate to ensure both human and horse health.In order to explore the issue of equine care during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study used qualitative methods. Qualitative methods are ideal for situations where little is known about the issue in question, and exploration is required . This stLivery yards were recruited predominantly through social media, as well as via “snowballing” (existing participants or contacts suggested to their networks that they might participate). It was explained to participants that this study was exploring how livery yard managers were making decisions around equine care and wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic, but that the interviews would also cover how they ran their yard before the pandemic. Informed consent was taken prior to beginning each interview. The interviews were semi-structured, following an interview guide available in the Interviews were conducted over the phone or via a secured audio-call facility . Participants often also shared photographs, documents (such as yard contracts and COVID rules), as well as their websites and Facebook pages, with the interviewer. Interviews were then audio recorded and transcribed, and anonymised: all names, locations, and other identifying data were removed.In order to collect observational data from horse owners as well as LYO/Ms, discussion fora were also collected between April 2020 and January 2021, from two open-access discussion forums. The forums were selected based on having primarily UK-based discussions, being open access with content publicly available, and being regularly used (new posts at least every day). The forums were searched monthly with the keywords “COVID”, “pandemic” and “livery”. Threads were incorporated into the project if they were focussed around the issue of caring for horses during the pandemic, particularly for those at livery. These threads were usually posted by the equestrian community generally, rather than by LYO/Ms. Eight threads were included in the analysis, predominantly covering how yards had dealt with the pandemic, and how participants felt about the changes. These threads were downloaded and anonymised.Anonymised interview and discussion forum data were placed in nNVivo 10 to facilitate analysis. Analysis was performed according to a Grounded Theory methodology, using the approach described by Charmaz ,16. AnalIn order to code the data, the lead researcher initially read through the documents to familiarise herself with them, and made notes about themes or ideas that emerged. Following this initial reading, closer reading and an initial coding exercise led to the creation of early codes which were “close” to the data—for example, closely described the themes in each narrative. For example, an early theme of “negotiating human-human contact on the yard” might apply to sections where respondents were speaking about this topic. As more data were added to the analysis, these themes were constantly checked, and sometimes the code label (its name) was altered, codes were combined together, or split apart. Parent themes were also added, according to important concepts. These themes and their contents were constantly checked against new data, until the final framework was considered to represent the experiences described in the participants’ narratives and forum data. That framework and its results are described below.This paper reports decision making around equine management on livery yards during the COVID-19 pandemic. It predominantly focuses on the initial lockdown, when most changes were made. These data were refined into a framework  which shLivery yard managers perceive their usual role as being a responsible manager who will maintain three interlinked outputs: a stable viable business; client satisfaction ; and equine wellbeing. The threat to human safety from COVID-19 resulted in a period of change on the yard in order to renegotiate management around this new risk. Without industry-specific guidance LYO/Ms needed to balance the interpretation of formal guidelines with their own perception of the risks of COVID-19 and the risks of changing their management on the horses. Each LYO/M found individualised solutions to maintain an equilibrium to suit their business, clients, horses, and their own health. For most yards, this level of change was unprecedented, and studying yards at this time provided considerable insight into the role of the LYO/M more broadly.LYO/M narratives highlighted that their role in pre-COVID-19 pandemic times was to maintain an equilibrium between three sometimes competing goals, as depicted in the image. In order to maintain the business, satisfied customers were needed, and satisfied customers were often thought to arise from happy horses:If you look after people’s horses and you’re nice to them, and you make the environment really friendly, you’ll have good clients, who stay all the time. Participant (P)6: If the horses are happy, the owners are happy. P14: [manager of a 63 horse DIY yard]Nevertheless, the need to maintain client satisfaction for a number of different clients, who all wanted individualised care, was frequently mentioned to be the most difficult part of running a yard. As a result, LYO/Ms described themselves as needing to be confident in their decisions and act “like a dictator”, laying down clear rules and regulations about how clients should act on the yard. If clients did not want to act within those rules, then it was better for them to leave:if they don’t like your rules, then go somewhere else where there are no rulesP7: [owner and manager of a 15-horse livery yard catering to DIY and part livery]you take no prisoners. If someone upsets you, you kick them off. Then they learn that I don’t mess around, so they don’t mess aroundP16: To some extent, the responsibility of “keeping clients safe and happy” could sometimes be stretched or de-prioritised compared to the other two areas of responsibility: unhappy or uncompliant clients could be easily replaced.Therefore, each yard functioned as a microcosm of what LYO/Ms believed constituted an appropriate business model and good horse-care practices. The ideal was to achieve a match between the clients’ expectations of good horse care with the practices offered by the LYO/M. This was the case whether the respondent owned and managed the yard themselves, owned the yard and sublet to another manager, or managed the yard but rented it from a yard owner. In the latter two situations, owners tended to sublet to people who upheld their views of ideal horse care and yard maintenance, thus furthering the proliferation of like-minded communities of individuals within a yard environment.As well as navigating the potentially conflicting needs of owners, horses, and the business, LYO/Ms allowed for some level of change  within each yard. However, aside from these changes and the occasional improvement to facilities, it was rare for LYO/Ms to describe major changes which occurred on their yards with horse-care routines and practices reported to have been maintained over many years. The exception to this was two yards who had altered the yard from traditional management to provide what they described as “horse-centric” livery , who had made changes not only to their business model and horse care, but also described constant “tinkering” with their set-up to adapt according to conditions. However, these yards were in the minority. LYO/Ms described customs and traditions which persisted regardless of other factors . In pre-COVID-19 pandemic times, LYO/Ms therefore described having created an environment for horse care, and then maintaining the status quo by directing clients to act within a designated set of expectations. However, all LYO/Ms’ roles changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, as change was negotiated.The COVID-19 pandemic pushed human wellbeing and safety to the fore. LYO/Ms described needing to flexibly adapt their yard environment, their own expectations, and their management of clients and horses alike in a very short time period.Decisions about equine care were considered to be individual to each yard manager, meaning that no “blanket” rules could be adopted; instead, it was the role of the LYO/M to act as a leader and weigh up multiple factors including the yard set-up, the horses, the clients, and above all the LYO/M’s perception of the various risks involved with having, or not having, people visit the yard:Every client, every horse and every yard have different things to deal with…It’s all very well saying “all close down.” Yes, that’s easy for you to say, because you’ve got a DIY yard with half a dozen hairy cobs that you could chuck in a field. Again, everybody’s circumstances are so different, you have to interpret it for yourself.P6: LYO/Ms described that they were aware of the need to find a solution which suited the circumstances of their yard. They described that they also needed to mitigate against a risk which affected them personally: horses on the livery yard are the legal responsibility of the LYO/M . TherefoI thought, “This could actually get really nasty because potentially here I’ve got 14 horses that I’ve got to look after on my own if the government goes as far as they have in a couple of the other countries.”P4: [manager of a 12-horse DIY yard ]I was worried it was going to come to owners not being allowed to drive to their horses, but thank God, it didn’t come to that, because I did not relish the thought of looking after 40 horses on my ownP16: Discussion forum respondent: I would not close my yards if the livery’s want to come, as I am a one man bandit and could not muck out and care for all mine and the l part livery and the diy. [Livery owner on discussion thread about how livery yards are managing during the COVID-19 pandemic] Therefore, it was in the LYO/Ms’ interest to maintain client and staff visits to the yard if possible, both to maintain positive relations with their clients, and so that the LYO/M did not have to care for all the horses.Maintaining client access to the yard was also key to maintaining client satisfaction and wellbeing. In pre-pandemic times, LYO/Ms rarely discussed moral or ethical decisions that they needed to make, aside from occasional concerns about horse wellbeing because of uncompliant liveries on their yard. However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought to the fore a set of complex moral dilemmas around client health and safety in terms of COVID-19 transmission risk, versus human emotional wellbeing, given that clients wanted to visit the yard for their mental and emotional health. Many LYO/Ms described feeling under pressure to also navigate the emotional and mental health of their livery clients, by allowing them to spend time at the yard:It’s, sort of, that balance between mental health, I suppose, and physical, isn’t it? She said, “I can’t stay in the house. I have to be able to get out.” I didn’t want to stop her but, equally, I don’t want to put her at risk.P9:  [manager of 27 horse DIY yard]I’ve had clients who have said, “My mental health situation is such that not seeing my horse-” and I’m thinking, “Don’t do that to me, I’m not a professional psychiatrist, it’s not my situation to judge that”P6: Managing this moral dilemma led to LYO/Ms making adjustments which would allow them to maintain client visits to the yard where possible, whilst creating rules and guidelines which would alter the usual yard practices to mitigate the risks from COVID-19:I thought I’ve got to get a set of rules in place for everyone, so that everyone knows. So I started off with this set of rules.P7: [manager of 15 horse yard offering DIY livery and part livery]However, unlike pre-pandemic rules, the rules initially imposed by LYO/Ms often changed significantly over short time periods, in response to compromise, co-operation and negotiations with the clients. For example, one yard arranged a yard council with representatives from each type of livery  who could work with the LYO/M to find suitable compromises for horse care and client satisfaction.In pre-pandemic times, it was common for LYO/Ms to follow the same traditions and annual practices for many years. However, the new risk to human health from COVID-19 was particularly unusual; respondents suggested that human health was an area which was prioritised below horse health and safety, both by YLO/Ms and in the general equestrian community:If it was Strangles, I think people on the yard would be a lot more scared…they’re more concerned about their horses than they are themselves.P14: [manager of 63 horse DIY yard]LYO/Ms’ perception of the severity of risk from COVID-19 was particularly important in how LYO/Ms thought about managing COVID-19: the more concerned the LYO/Ms, the stricter the levels of lockdown:I’m an ex-nurse and have been in pharmaceutical research so I understand what’s going on. That’s probably all the combination that has helped to make me very proactive about it, that plus the fact that my partner has had it.P4: [manager of 12 horse DIY yard]Quite truthfully, I think the hysteria around COVID, having had it and all the rest of it, is—social distancing is a sensible thing, lockdown is not. I’ve had it, I’m not going to get it twice. …The decision [to allow people from other yards to pay to use the cross country course] is based on the fact that I’m probably more gung ho than I should be, because I don’t think I’m going to get it twice, certainly not within the interval that we’re talking.P15: [manager of competition centre which is sublet to three yard managers: holds 80 horses total on full livery]In the first instance, P4 used her medical knowledge and personal experience to share her concern about the risk of COVID-19 with her liveries, who she said therefore listened to her and were “quite happy” with the changes she put in place, even though she was clear with them that those changes would be long term. In the case of P15, however, the perception of the risk of COVID-19 was much lower, and he was happy to open up his competition centre as soon as official guidance would allow, though he put in place strict distancing measures in order to do so.Another place where new levels of risk interpretation around human safety were required was in the call to “protect the NHS”  by not taking unnecessary risks which could potentially result in hospital visits. Given that horse riding (or care) is, by nature, a particularly risky activity with a high injury burden ,19,20, tWe felt we had to support the NHS by not letting people ride in case they came off.P8: However, the remaining LYO/Ms suggested that the decision of whether people should ride was not straightforward, given the need to weigh the risk of personal injury from riding incidents, against the risks that arose from stopping people riding: upsetting their clients, emotional distress, and having horses fall out of routine:There were some opinions that horses shouldn’t be ridden at all but we, sort of, thought, “Well, it’s all part and parcel of the horse’s welfare.” And, particularly, coming in to spring, they still needed exercising and working. You’ve got to balance mental health of the clients and it’s a whole mixture, reallyP14: [manager of 63 horse DIY yard]As a result, most yards “recommended” not riding, or else reduced access to areas which presented a higher risk such as jumping fields. One LYO/M did not ban jumping, but instead placed new pole exercises in the arena each day to encourage her liveries toward lower-risk flatwork rather than jumping.In order to institute new COVID-19 safe guidance on their yard, LYO/Ms had to evaluate both the generic advice from the government and the more specific, but allegedly confusing, guidance from the equestrian authorities such as the advice from British Equestrian (BE) and the British Horse Society (BHS).I found that when lockdown was announced, the guidance and support was absolutely shocking for livery yard owners, it was just horrendous….worse than useless. I think they caused more problems than what they helped with….they just left us high and dry with absolutely nowhere to turn, and we had to cope with our liveries, and it was horrendous.P10: Guidance from the first lockdown suggested that travel was only permitted for “essential” reasons, which included animal welfare and caring for livestock . This meThese are not laws, they’re guidelines, and I think you have to think for yourself and be responsible. We’re not looking for loopholes, we’re interpreting, and people interpret differently.P6: However, the guidance presented a particularly difficult situation for LYO/Ms whose yards had both horses kept at full livery  as well as horses on part or DIY livery, where clients could visit as an “essential” journey to care for livestock.We then fall between two stalls, because we are basically full and part livery. So it is not essential travel, it’s-They’re full livery so we can actually look after the horses, there is no reason for anyone to be here at all, is the original guideline. So that put us in quite a difficult situationP6: spending huge amounts of time at the yard, riding and bathing horses” [discussion thread] at the yard, under the guise of “looking after livestock”. This led to the need for compromise; relaxing the guidance for full liveries, while restricting DIY liveries. This meant needing to either re-interpret or go against the official guidance. One yard temporarily swapped her full livery clients onto a DIY contract, risking her business, so as to enable full liveries to visit the yard as often as DIYs.Yards which catered for both full and DIY livery, therefore, sometimes found themselves in a complex predicament where full livery clients were effectively banned from visiting, but DIY liveries “Taking into account the complexity of the moral and legislative dilemmas about how to manage a livery yard during the COVID-19 pandemic, yard managers were left with a range of practical considerations to balance with the priority of maintaining equine wellbeing. These included how to minimise the human workload , how to keep people safe from contracting the disease while on the yard, as well as improving the general safety of both the LYO/M and clients so as not to burden the NHS.Participants’ narratives made clear that maintaining current equine management and welfare was one of their most significant priorities, and that human lives could be readjusted to account for the changed practices needed to achieve standard equine care, while maintaining “COVID-safe” practices such as social distancing. Therefore, the disruption to the LYO/M, staff, and horse owners themselves were often huge, while the disruption to the horses’ lives were less apparent. There was no question in LYO/Ms’ minds that this was how it should be; when asked why they chose to work in this way, they suggested:it’s the welfare of the horse that’s our priority. We didn’t want the horses to, sort of, suffer or change their routine in any way. It was up to the people to sort themselves out, really.P14: [manager of 63 horse DIY yard]As much as possible I try and run this place for the horses. Me first and then the horses because I have to be able to stay sane. For me, the important thing is, as much as possible, that the horses have as much routine as possible. Within that then okay, how can we do things safely whilst maintaining things as much as possible for the horses.P4: [manager of 12 horse DIY livery]Therefore, LYO/Ms predominantly sought ways that they could maintain their usual routines and standards of equine care, but with increased human health and safety measures and a reduced workload.Changing the carer of the horses , OR the LYO/M/staff could look after the horse at one end of the day.Considering increased turnout time in fields.Reducing exercise time of horses.LYO/Ms described that finding ways to reduce the workload at the yard would have multiple benefits: it would ensure minimum client time was required at the yard, as well making it easier for them as manager, if they ended up needing to look after all the horses for any reason. However, given that LYO/Ms felt it was important to maintain equine welfare standards and, as far as possible, normal care practices, LYO/Ms described three main options:Altering the carer of the horse was the least disruptive option, and as such was the first port of call for many yards. LYO/Ms described lowering their usual costs for assisting owners with horse care, so that owners would be more likely to take this option. Three DIY yards encouraged “buddy systems”, so that each owner would pair with another, so that each individual would only go to the yard once a day, but would care for two horses when they did so:I encouraged them to buddy, so, that’s one half of the buddy would come up at the beginning of the day, and one would come up at the end of the day. They could only buddy with somebody on their block, because nobody was allowed in each other’s blockP10: This strategy had the added bonus that, if one of the “buddies” were to become ill, their partner would already be familiar with the day-to-day care of that horse.One livery yard went further in streamlining care, suggesting her liveries should make sure that their horses were used to having as little intervention as possible, in case of the pandemic worsening:I was saying, “The worst-case scenario is, you’re not going to be allowed to come up.” They were still all in rugs, because it was wet, wasn’t it, and cold? But they were out most of the time, 24/7, thankfully. But I was like, “I want them with rugs off, so please don’t go reclipping them. No other weights for their rugs now. Get them toughened up a little bit, so that if push comes to shove and you lot can’t come up, I can just do drive-by checks of naked horses, check their troughs, throw their hay in from the back of the van and do it.”… they didn’t do anything. I couldn’t see people taking their rugs off or moving their fences. Nobody changed anythingP16: [laughs] Streamlined care meant that the horse’s care needs were ensured, but consistent presence of the owner was not considered by LYO/Ms as central to the horse’s day-to-day wellbeing. However, disparity arose as owners put pressure on LYO/Ms to visit the yard for their own personal emotional wellbeing, clarifying that owners and LYO/Ms consider that perhaps the horse–human relationship is more important to the human, than it is for the horse.I mean, nothing’s really changed as far as the welfare of the horses with COVID, I mean I don’t really have any horses that seem to be struggling with not seeing their owners.P2: In maintaining welfare during a pandemic, facilitating horse-owner interactions was viewed as optional, while maintaining usual equine care and routines was considered important.Given that 16 of the 24 livery yards used stabling for at least part of the day all year round , increasing turnout time was one potential way of minimising human workload whilst maintaining equine welfare standards. In this context, horses were perceived as having everything they needed when turned out. Turnout was seen as part of good welfare, and a time when horses could be allowed to “be horses”, as well as enjoy rest and social time:there’s lots to forage for out there, there’s natural shelter, and shade. We thought if something happens to us, we know our horses can pretty much survive for a couple of days, it was our contingency, and also it lightens the workload on us.P1: [manager of equine therapy centre which has five livery horses kept at full livery on a track alongside therapy horses]Therefore, the eight yards which already had turnout at all times, or provided free-choice turnout and shelter access, did not need to make any changes to their equine management:no drastic changes, because they’re all out anyway it wasn’t like we had to turn anything out —it was all the same. P17: While human intervention was required for turned-out horses , none of those tasks had the urgency of the tasks needed for a stabled horse, enabling strict routines to be relaxed.However, the decision of whether to increase turnout time for part-stabled horses was not straightforward, and thus this issue highlights the existing dilemmas which frequently occur on yards about the amount of time spent in fields versus stables.Firstly, all yards had a balance between the number of horses and the way in which they used their paddocks: stabling part-time not only protected the horses, but was also one means to protect the land. Therefore, yards which chose to increase turnout time were risking their usual paddock maintenance. Eleven of the yards which commonly used part-time stabling chose not to take this risk of increasing turnout time, while others felt it was permissible for a short time:It’s going to hammer my summer fields and they’re not going to get much of a chance to recover because of course during the winter grass doesn’t grow. I’m not quite sure what will happen with that later but it doesn’t matter. For the time being, the important thing is that we keep everybody safe. How we figure that out later, we’ll just have to figure it out. P4: [manager of 12 horse DIY livery]Secondly, while horses were perceived as having everything they needed while turned out, in other ways turnout was also seen as potentially posing a risk to equine welfare: horses were considered to have the potential to injure themselves, become overweight and laminitic, or have other issues as a result of additional time turned out:When it kicked off, some people were saying, “Well, can we just send the horses out in the field until this is over?” And I wasn’t prepared to let them do that, for reasons that, at that time, the fields were very wet. The horses aren’t used to being out. I do know of one place that did do that and I know that one of their horses had a horrific accident and would have died if it hadn’t been for a passer-by.P14: [manager of 63 horse DIY yard]Some horses, yes, chuck them in a field for a few weeks, they’ll be fine. But others, if they’re not ridden, they’re going to be a bloody nightmare to handle on the ground.P6: As a result, simply turning all horses out full-time was not considered to be a good option for the yards which commonly used part-time stabling. This was often considered on a case-by-case basis, depending on the horse’s health and behaviour, and the severity of need:I didn’t want to scare people but, basically, I said, “We’ll have to look at how many people we lose. If we hit a number of people that…” Say we hit 50% of the people that would normally come to the yard were all in isolation, we all agreed that we would muck in together. Then I said, “We would have to then prioritise, so…” Probably 50% of the horses on the yard, including mine, could be chucked out and would probably come to no harm. We would do that, then we would have to focus on the laminitis horses. It’s just the time of year, isn’t it? It couldn’t be a worse time of year with the spring grass coming through. P9: [manager of 27 horse DIY livery]These discussions highlight the extent to which human intervention and management was considered to be necessary in maintaining equine wellbeing, even during a pandemic.Reducing exercise not only lessened the risk of riding-related activities, but also the time people spent at the yard, and their contact with people, structures and objects: tack rooms were perceived as potentially risky areas. Horses not being ridden or “roughed off” were considered to need less attention in terms of rugging, grooming and maintenance. However, as with additional turnout, reducing exercise was seen as potentially problematic for equine wellbeing, and hence was not considered to be an appropriate option for every horse. Exercise was constructed as keeping horses occupied and stopping them from becoming bored and injuring themselves, and also a means to stopping horses becoming overweight and developing laminitis:realistically, some of the horses have to be worked, especially the thoroughbreds because they just get out hand. (Laughter) They’re not playing polo at the moment, even though they’re in gentle work, they’re still hooning around the field. They get bored. I mean, they get seriously bored, but whereas the little cobby pony that isn’t fit, can I say it’s essential that she’s in work because we can manage her weight differently? It’s just making that call.P3: [manager of 6 horse reschooling and full livery yard]we have two horses including my horse who are quite overweight, well not now because he’s on the track, but he’s prone to it so I want to keep him in work. And another mare who was the same, so that was quite difficult to sort of get your head round because it’s kind of essential that they don’t get overweight again … I then just worked the mare for her instead, to keep her ticking over so she didn’t just get grossly obese and out of work.P17: Exercise was therefore presented as a positive for the horse’s welfare, and this is likely to have contributed to the low number of LYO/Ms who banned riding outright. As the pandemic progressed and lockdown was eased during the summer, some yards suggested people were actually riding more than usual, and that this was a positive for their horses:if the horses aren’t getting ridden, they’re going to be on one. I mean, my liveries are riding more than they have ever done. They’ve got all the time, and the horses are happier because they’re being used because they’re being used and they’re going out for rides and hacks… And I think the owners are happier, because they’re actually riding, they’re using their horses, which has got to be better for everybody. And you can take exercise in this, and this is their exercise. So yes, I think everyone is winning, it’s a win-win situationP7: [manager of 15 horse DIY and part livery]These results have shown that LYO/Ms found ways to protect their clients while on yards, but within the already-delicate balance of their business, horse and client wellbeing. In doing so, they prioritised changes which had minimal impact on equine wellbeing; highlighting their perception that care but not necessarily horse–human relationships were important to horses, and demonstrating how the careful balance of practices performed on a yard lead to difficulties in making changes to equine management practices such as turnout.This study demonstrated how the decisions made on livery yards during a pandemic can highlight the priorities and perceptions of LYO/Ms more generally. While livery yards represent a very diverse set of establishments, they are often suggested to be places where management practices can have negative impacts on equine or human wellbeing ,23. TherThe COVID-19 pandemic provided an ideal opportunity to explore decision making on yards. Given that major changes to equine management are reportedly quite rare on livery yards, the pandemic provided the occasion for traditions and schemas about management to be disrupted. The fact that yards maintained the status quo horse care as far as possible shows how deeply embedded those care practices are in the fabric of the yard culture. Each yard provided the care and management appropriate for the horse , and these care and management regimes appear almost impervious to radical change. However, when small changes were taken up , those changes were often considered to be favourable changes by LYO/Ms, who suggested that they may continue with the slightly altered practice. Given the issues owners sometimes face in equine management on livery yards described in the introduction section ,7,22, sumaintaining efficiently and effectively current organisational arrangements….the overall function is toward maintenance rather than change” [leaders are people who shape the goals, motivations, and actions of others. Frequently they initiate change to reach existing and new goals. Leadership takes much ingenuity, energy and skill” [However, one change that did happen on each yard was the move yard managers themselves made from their everyday role of managing the status quo, towards a role of leadership. Their descriptions of their roles before and during the COVID-19 pandemic closely matched the roles described in business studies of management versus leadership: management is considered to comprise “ change” . Comparad skill” . Leadersd skill” , and usid skill” . During One interesting finding which has not previously been discussed in the literature around equine welfare and horse–human relationships, is the divergence between people needing to see their horses, but perceiving that horses do not need to see their people. This study found that it was not considered to compromise equine welfare if the horse’s owner did not handle the horse, as long as its care needs were met by someone. It was, however, considered to seriously compromise human needs if people could not see their horses. Given the recent advancements in study of the horse–human relationship which have found that horses are not necessarily attached to any one caregiver in the way that humans might hope , this fiNevertheless, the horse–human relationship was considered in this study to be very important to the mental health of the owner. Studies of canine–human relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic also highlighted how the benefits of the human–animal relationship and its daily routines to owner mental health were more apparent during the pandemic than ever before ,29. UnliThe issue of human welfare and safety being sometimes de-prioritised compared to equine wellbeing aligns with previous studies, which have shown that danger, hardship and endurance are expected parts of equestrianism ,30. As “This study methodology has some limitations. The LYO/Ms who volunteered to take part in this study may not be representative of the overall UK population; as with any voluntary study, response bias is likely to have affected the data. Indeed, the yards who gave up their time described a high degree of professionalism in how they ran their yards. Other studies reported more interventionist practices such as banning riding, or banning owners from seeing their horses . AnotherLivery yards are important institutions in terms of their effects on equine welfare. This study furthers our understanding of livery yard culture and management, showing how each yard has deeply embedded equine care practices, the importance of which is so entrenched that they changed little, even in the face of an international pandemic. Each LYO/M described making decisions which best suited individual circumstances in terms of the LYO/M themselves, the horses (as highest priority), the clients, and the business; for each LYO/M, it seemed that their way was the only way that they could have managed.Given that many initiatives and researchers have suggested that improving standards across yards would be one way of improving equine welfare on a population level, this study suggests that supporting LYO/Ms to share best practices and to make small, step-by-step changes will allow them to adapt new initiatives to their own individual situation and balance of business, clients and equine needs.Moreover, this study has highlighted the complexity of yard management and ownership, and the lack of material, practical or emotional support for those running yards, particularly during times of change such as during the pandemic. In order to support yard owners and managers in changing to improve equine welfare, it is important also to provide support to the other areas of yard management, including the business model, client management, and emotional support.


M=4.11years, SD=1.34) filled in a questionnaire with items from validated questionnaires. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed, whatever the directionality considered, a positive association between children’s eating in the absence of hunger and their BMI z-scores. Restriction for health and restriction for weight control were differently linked to EAH and to children’s BMI z-scores. Namely, low child inhibitory control, food as reward and restriction for health were identified as risk factors for EAH. Restriction for weight control was not linked to EAH, but was predicted by child BMI z-scores. Interventions aiming to improve children’s abilities to self-regulate food intake could consider training children’s general self-regulation, their self-regulation of intake, and/or promoting adaptive parental feeding practices.This study aimed to gain a better understanding of the associations between young children’s eating in the absence of hunger (EAH), inhibitory control, body mass index (BMI) and several maternal controlling feeding practices . In addition, to more properly assess the relationship between children’s and maternal variables, the link between EAH and restriction was explored separately in two directionalities: “child to parent” or “parent to child.” To do this, mothers of 621 children aged 2.00–6.97years (51% boys,  The prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adolescents has increased in a large number of countries since the 1980s . World HYoung children are believed to have an innate capacity to self-regulate their food intake, by following their internal signals of hunger and fullness e.g., . As theyNot only environmental factors, but also children’s temperamental traits play a role in their ability to self-regulate food intake and their weight status. Inhibitory control is an executive functioning process that has been studied extensively in relation to eating behaviors. Inhibitory control refers to the ability to inhibit a dominant behavior or to engage in behavior required for an activity . A wide ad libitum free access to foods after a meal and after having reported they were full. EAH referred to the energy intake  consumed during the free-access session (An eating behavior reflecting self-regulation of intake that is of interest in relation to children’s weight status is “eating in the absence of hunger” (EAH). EAH refers to children’s susceptibility to eating when satiated if presented with palatable energy-dense foods , and has session . This pa session . As a re session , a self- session  have bee session . Another session . Appetit session .Some studies have already investigated possible links between EAH, and the previously mentioned environmental  and temperamental factors (inhibitory control). For instance, Due to its assumed relation with children’s weight status, it is crucial to gain a better understanding of factors that are linked to children’s EAH. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the relationship between EAH and children’s weight status, and to assess variables that could influence EAH in children see . More prIt was hypothesized, based on previous studies, that higher levels of EAH and appetite would be linked to higher BMI z-scores in children e.g., , and thavia daycare centers and preschools in France, with the use of social media  and through an internal database . They were invited to complete a hard copy version of the questionnaire or the online version, available on the platform SurveyMonkey. For the study presented in this article, all caregivers fulfilling a mother role for a child aged 2–6years were eligible to participate. They were informed that their participation was voluntary and without compensation. An ethical approval (n°19–591) was granted for the large project by the Institutional Review Board  of the French Institute of Medical Research and Health, and a study registration was done by the data protection service involved (CNRS).The recruitment of participants took place as part of a project whose overall aim was to study parental feeding practices and their links with child eating behaviors in France, and which encompassed several research objectives , as in experimental settings, but also the pattern over a time period that is longer than just one meal. The same is true for children’s temperament/behavior and parental feeding practices. For this study, questionnaires were selected that were already validated in French for parents of young children.My child eats small quantities (even if the food is liked)] on a five-point Likert scale ranging from (1) “Strongly disagree” to (5) “Strongly agree.” All items are presented in The child’s low appetite was measured with three items of the Children’s Eating Difficulties Questionnaire CEDQ; . MothersIf my child is no longer hungry and I offer him something s/he particularly likes, s/he eats it.). For the two other items, mothers had to identify one of the three answer options that best suited their child’s behavior: e.g., for the item: “After s/he has finished his meal, if candies are available and I let him/her,” they could choose between the options (1) “s/he does not take any,” (2) “s/he takes one or two just to taste them,” or (3) “s/he takes a lot.” The answers to these two last items were recoded to (1), (3), (5) to match the answers of the other items . A score was calculated for each child by averaging the scores on all items; a higher score indicated a higher level of EAH and thus a poorer self-regulation.The child’s eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) was measured with six items of a recent French questionnaire . Some orMy child can wait before entering into new activities if s/he is asked to.). Based on feedback from parents who pretested the questionnaire used for the current study, it was decided to delete one item . Parents declared that this item was not fully adapted to age range of the children in the current study, as the CBQ was developed for children aged 3–8years while we included children aged 2–6years in the study. Mothers were asked to rate their agreement with each item on a seven-point scale ranging from (1) “Very untrue” to (7) “Very true,” according to their child’s behavior. All items are presented in The child’s inhibitory control was measured with five items of the Children’s Behavior Questionnaire Short Form , restriction for weight control , and food as reward . All items are presented in Maternal use of controlling feeding practices was measured with the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire . For thi2) was calculated and normed BMI z-scores were calculated using French growth standards for children , if the child had an illness susceptible of affecting his/her eating behavior  or if information about one of these aspects was missing. Questionnaires were also excluded if the child’s sex was not provided, if a mother already completed a questionnaire for a sibling, or if there was a high number of missing items. This resulted in the exclusion of 389 questionnaires. A total of 621 questionnaires were maintained for the analyses of the present study: 190 hard copies and 431 online copies.Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) with a structural equation modeling (SEM) approach  were perScores were calculated for child behaviors and for maternal feeding practices by averaging the scores on the corresponding items. Correlations were calculated to explore the links between the dimensions related to maternal feeding practices , child’s inhibitory control, child’s EAH, and child’s BMI z-scores. Simple regressions were also performed to study possible effects of child age and sex on children’s behaviors and maternal practices.Thereafter, SEM analyses were conducted to assess the structure between these different dimensions, based on our hypotheses derived from past literature. SEM methodology was chosen because it enables to formulate several hypotheses in a global model and to test if the data are in line with the hypotheses. Following the idea that children’s eating behavior influences their BMI z-scores, we hypothesized that EAH (the focus in this study) and appetite would be direct predictors of child BMI z-scores. Then, we assumed that maternal feeding practices e.g.,  and chilThus, we ran separate models for restriction for weight control and restriction for health, and two types of models were estimated to take into account the possible different directionalities between EAH and maternal restriction (effects of “child to parent” and of “parent to child”). This resulted in four separate models: (1A) “child to parent” with restriction for weight control, (1B) “parent to child” with restriction for weight control, (2A) “child to parent” with restriction for health, and (2B) “parent to child” with restriction for health.All SEM analyses were conducted using the R package lavaan 0.6–7 . All iteSD=1.34) participated in this study. The characteristics of the mothers can be found in Mothers of 621 children aged 2.00–6.97years , and a lower appetite . Children’s inhibitory control increased significantly with age , children showed a lower appetite with age , and mothers reported using more food as reward  and restriction for weight control  with an increasing age of the child.Furthermore, simple regression analyses indicated that child sex and child age were significant predictors for a number of child behaviors and maternal feeding practices. Girls showed higher levels of inhibitory control than boys  and two models included restriction for health (model 2A and 2B). The A-models included the effect of “child (EAH) to parent (restriction),” while the B-models included the effect of “parent (restriction) to child (EAH).” For these models, the data of 541 participants were used (80 children had a missing BMI z-score).p=0.064).In all four models, a negative association was found between child inhibitory control and child EAH, meaning that higher levels of inhibitory control were linked to less EAH. Food as reward was also consistently positively associated with EAH. Furthermore, child low appetite was consistently negatively associated with child BMI z-score, and EAH was positively associated with child BMI z-score, except in model 2B  is influenced by parental feeding practices and child temperament . In sepaIn line with previous studies , we obsevia child BMI z-scores. Based on this finding, we think that restriction for weight control could be mainly a child-centered practice: this practice could be dominantly implemented by parents based on the child’s weight status and parental concerns related to this. Accordingly, The results further indicated that environmental factors, specifically parental feeding practices, were linked to child EAH: both food as reward and restriction for health were significantly positively associated with EAH. One could argue that food as reward is mainly a parent-centered feeding practice; meaning that parents use food rewards in exchange for good behavior of the child, regardless of the child’s eating behavior or eating temperament. For restriction for health, we explored the relation with EAH in two directions (“child to parent” or “parent to child”). In both models, and thus both directions, a significant association was observed. These results could suggest a bidirectional relationship, beyond the scope of the present paper, according to which poor self-regulation in the child might stimulate parents to impose restrictive measures, which in turn, could reinforce the child’s poor self-regulation and divert them from their sensitivity to satiety cues. This bidirectional link was previously already suggested by Overall, our results seem to indicate that factors on both child and parent levels contribute to children’s self-regulation of eating (EAH) and associated weight status, and this already at preschool age. They give rise to the idea that, for children, it could be important to guide them from a very young age in maintaining (or developing) adaptive self-regulation abilities for food intake and to avoid EAH. Parents and schools could play an important role in encouraging children to listen to their inner sensations of hunger and fullness for intake and in modeling these strategies. A limited number of intervention programs exist for children to promote a better self-regulation of eating. They include, for example, appetite awareness trainings, teach concepts of hunger and fullness e.g., , or theySeveral limitations should be noted for the current study. First, the cross-sectional design limits the results to mere associations. Longitudinal studies are necessary for studying the causality of the relationships. It is worthy to note, though, that this study did not aim to draw conclusions regarding causality between restriction and EAH, but merely wanted to take into account the possibility of a “child to parent” or a “parent to child” effect. Second, maternal controlling feeding practices were self-reported and might be subject to a social desirability bias. Third, child inhibitory control and EAH were not observed directly but were mother-reported, and might thus be influenced by parental beliefs and perceptions. In two studies, mothers were found to rate the self-regulation of eating of their child higher than fathers did, suggesting the vulnerability to subjectivity of parent-reports of self-regulation . ParentsThis study also presents a number of strengths. A first and important strength of this study is its large sample size. Second, this study presents results of a French population which expands the results of studies mainly conducted in the United States. Third, distinct dimensions were used for different parental controlling practices  which, sometimes, have been used in combined, overarching dimensions in the past, resulting in mixed results. These distinctions enabled us to obtain a better understanding of the relations between these practices and child behaviors and BMI, and clearly showed that these restrictive practices should be studied as separate dimensions. Last, this study is original in its design by combining temperamental and environmental dimensions that could be linked to child self-regulation and BMI, and by exploring possible different directionalities in separate SEM models.In sum, the results of the current study showed a link between young children’s self-regulation of eating and their BMI, identifying EAH as a possible risk factor for the development of weight problems. Both temperamental traits (inhibitory control) and environmental factors  were associated with EAH, and restriction for health and restriction for weight control were linked differently to EAH and to children’s BMI z-scores. Beyond the scope of this study, we think that interventions could focus on improving children’s abilities to self-regulate intake, promoting inhibitory control or promoting adaptive parental feeding practices. It could also be of interest to take on a systemic approach in future interventions in which different actions are combined. These interventions could, for example, propose trainings for children to improve their general and food-related self-regulation. In addition, trainings could guide caregivers in adopting responsive behaviors to their children’s appetite and satiation cues, and in using structure-related parental feeding practices.This study provided additional insight into the relationships between EAH, BMI, inhibitory control and different maternal feeding practices, but it is important to note that this study focused specifically on maternal feeding practices. Future studies with a large number of fathers are needed to replicate or refute the current results with mothers, as https://zenodo.org/record/4436613#.X_8IeuhKi71.The original contributions presented in the study are publicly available. This data can be found here: The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Institutional Review Board  of the French Institute of Medical Research and Health. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.KP, SI, SM-P, and CC conceptualized the study. KP and CC conducted all analyses. KP is first author, she drafted a first version of the manuscript, SI, SM-P, and CC thereafter contributed to editing the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.This work was supported by the European Union’s horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 764985: EDULIA project).The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. 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International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. The study reviewed, in Southeast Asian populations, the increase in chronic consumption of betel quid, along with tobacco, as a source of increased insulin-resistant pathologies [In September 2020, de la Monte and colleagues published the article “Betel Quid Health Risks of Insulin Resistance Diseases in Poor Young South Asian Native and Immigrant Populations”, doi:10.3390/ijerph17186690, in the We have carefully consulted the text of the article and consider that certain bibliographic citations are associated with paragraphs that have nothing to do with the text in which they are cited.(A).“Although all age groups were affected, the greatest impact of increased areca nut availability/production was in youths from socially and economically disadvantaged populations”, referenced with citation 12. We have carefully read the article “Global epidemiology of areca nut usage” [De la Monte and colleagues state at the end of Section 4. Betel Quid Preparations: (B).“However, of particular interest are the claims that betel quid enhances memory and cognition”, referenced with citation 19. Similarly, we consulted the article “Areca catechu L. (Arecaceae): a review of its traditional uses, botany, phytochemistry, pharmacology, and toxicology” [At the end of Section 5. Cultural and Medicinal Uses of Areca Nut and Betel Quid: icology”  and foun(C).“betel quid chewing during pregnancy significantly impaired fetal development, increased risk of low birth weight, and led to neonatal withdrawal syndrome”, reference 91, “Consumption of the tobacco–betel–calcium hydroxide mixture, among Spanish students” [Finally, in Section 9. Adverse Health Effects of Chronic Betel Quid and Tobacco Exposures, they say: tudents” . This scIn order not to be tedious, we will refer to three demonstrative and disturbing examples: Bibliographic references and citations within scientific papers and documents  tell potential readers where the authors have taken their information from. A good scientific paper is one that is well documented; it also shows that the authors have taken care to read the referenced documents, thus providing reliability to the study, but if the references are cited out of context in order to bias them in favor of one’s own argumentation, there is a risk that readers who know the subject matter will consider that they are facing situations of misinterpretation of the sources, with the consequent loss of confidence in the article in question.In view of the above, we are of the opinion that the results of the de la Monte and colleagues’ study, should be taken with caution.