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Maternal feeding strategies and child's food intake : considering weight and demographic influences using structural equation modeling

Background:
Research concerning child's food intake have considered various influencing factors, for example parental feeding strategies, demographic and weight factors. At this time, however, there are few findings that explore these factors simultaneously. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to test a structural equation model regarding the associations between maternal feeding strategies and child's food intake.

Methods:
556 mothers and their children between 1 and 10 years of age participated in this crosssectional study. Besides socio-demographic and weight data, the mothers were asked about their feeding strategies as well as their child's food intake.

Results:
The well-fitting model explained 73% of the variance in the child's consumption of healthy and 34% of unhealthy food. In addition to the effect of the mother's social status and the child's age, a rewarding and modeling feeding behavior significantly influenced the child's food intake.

Conclusion:
The results highlight the relevance of maternal feeding behavior on the child's food intake. In terms of preventing eating- or weight-related problems, the findings indicate the usefulness of training parents in explicit modeling behavior and avoiding food as a reward.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:Potsdam/oai:kobv.de-opus-ubp:4502
Date January 2009
CreatorsKröller, Katja, Warschburger, Petra
PublisherUniversität Potsdam, Humanwissenschaftliche Fakultät. Institut für Psychologie
Source SetsPotsdam University
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypePostprint
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceInternational journal of behavioural nutrition and physical activity 6 (2009), Art. 78, DOI: 10.1186/1479-5868-6-78
Rightshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/de/

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