Gender and Body-Fat Status as Predictors of Parental Feeding Styles and Children's Nutritional Knowledge, Eating Habits and Behaviours.
The home food environment is critically important for the development of children&rsquo;s health-related practices. By managing dietary restrictions, providing nutritional knowledge and demonstrating eating behaviours, parents contribute to children&rsquo;s food preferences and eating patterns. The present study examined nutritional knowledge, eating habits and appetite traits among 387 Polish five-year-old healthy and overfat boys and girls in the context of parental feeding styles and body-fat status. We observed that girls presented healthier eating habits than boys; however, overfat boys had better nutritional knowledge. Children&rsquo;s body-fat percentage (%BF) was found to be linked with eating behaviours such as low satiety responsiveness and increased food responsiveness in girls as well as low emotional undereating and increased emotional overeating in boys. Our results revealed that overfat mothers, who were more prone to use the encouragement feeding style, rarely had daughters with increased %BF. Parents of overfat girls, however, were less likely to apply encouragement and instrumental feeding styles. Contrary to popular belief and previous studies, overfat women do not necessarily transmit unhealthy eating patterns to their children. Parents&rsquo; greater emphasis on managing the weight and eating habits of daughters (rather than sons) probably results from their awareness of standards of female physical attractiveness.
['Lipowska|Małgorzata|M|0000-0002-7422-159X', 'Lipowski|Mariusz|M|0000-0002-8389-7006', 'Jurek|Paweł|P|', 'Jankowska|Anna M|AM|', 'Pawlicka|Paulina|P|']
D000273:Adipose Tissue D015992:Body Mass Index D001835:Body Weight D002652:Child Behavior D002675:Child, Preschool D004644:Emotions D005247:Feeding Behavior D005260:Female D005518:Food Preferences D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice D006801:Humans D008297:Male D009035:Mothers D050177:Overweight D010290:Parents D011044:Poland D012527:Satiation D012959:Socioeconomic Factors D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
feeding styles nutritional knowledge eating patterns overfat obesity