Nothing alien about it: A comparison of weight bias in preschool-aged children's ratings of non-human cartoons and human figures.

Media exposes children to weight biased messaging by presenting overweight characters negatively. Although bias against human figures and human characters has been examined, children's bias against non-human animated characters is unstudied. Children's (N=60; 4-6 years old) weight bias against human and non-human characters was measured. Children saw characters of different weights (thin, overweight), genders (girl, boy), and stimuli type (human-line drawing, human-photo, non-human cartoon), and rated them using positive and negative characteristics. ANOVAs and t-tests examined weight bias based on mean ratings of each character. Overweight figures were rated more negatively than non-overweight figures overall, regardless of gender or type of stimulus. Further, mean ratings of the non-human cartoon were significantly less positive than ratings of both the line drawings and photographs of human figures. However, there was no interaction of stimulus type and weight status, suggesting that bias is expressed equally against human and non-human overweight figures. Results indicated that children's negative weight bias extends to non-human cartoon figures. Implications for children's media are discussed.

Changing maternal perceptions of healthy feeding: a novel intervention.

OBJECTIVE: This study sought to better understand factors influencing mothers' perceptions about healthy feeding. Additionally, a social consensus intervention was used to try to change mothers' likelihood to serve healthy foods. METHODS: Mothers saw photographs of healthy and unhealthy snacks and meals and rated them on several factors that were hypothesized to predict the likelihood of serving the foods. Then, mothers were randomly assigned to the experimental or control condition. Those in the experimental condition received social consensus information about these foods, whereas the control condition did not. The change in perceptions in the control and experimental conditions was examined. RESULTS: Mothers rated healthy meals and snacks less favourably than unhealthy meals and snacks on factors including cost, preparation time and difficulty, and child preference. Furthermore, mothers' perceptions of foods as liked by their child, easy to prepare and 'kid-friendly' predicted higher likelihood to serve those foods. Finally, mothers were more likely to describe the healthy snack as kid-friendly and indicated being more likely to serve it after receiving favourable social norm information about the food. CONCLUSIONS: The use of social consensus interventions to change parents' perceptions of healthy snacks may be one means of increasing the quality of children's diets.

The validity of the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire: some critical remarks.

Recent debate has considered the validity of self-reports and laboratory-based behavioral measures of emotional eating. This paper reviews the literature on self-reported emotional eating and actual eating behavior (i.e., examines the concurrent validity). As detailed in the review, the literature suggests mixed findings on the correspondence between these self-reports and actual eating behavior. Based on this, we cite characteristics of studies that support the concurrent validity of the DEBQ and address possible reasons for the lack of concurrent validity in other studies, as well as concerns about the measurement of emotional eating in the laboratory. Two reasons for the lack of concurrent validity of self-report emotional eating scales identified in this review include (1) methodological/experimental design flaws and (2) the variability of emotional eating based on participant characteristics. We argue that further research on emotional eating needs to address factors related to self-reports of emotional eating and objective emotional eating behavior (e.g., negative affect, inaccurate recall of eating behaviors, sample differences, and laboratory design). We conclude with recommendations for future research on emotional eating.

The impact of recalled elementary school height and weight on later weight concerns.

Although overweight children and adolescents experience a number of immediate difficulties, little research has investigated the long-term psychological consequences for individuals who were overweight as children or adolescents despite their weight status as young adults. The goal of this study was to examine the relations between individuals' retrospective reports of their weight and height during elementary and high school, and their past and current weight concerns. It was expected that individuals who recall being overweight as a child or adolescent would have more weight concerns than their peers who recall being normal weight, even after controlling for current body size. Participants were 174 females and 61 males, ranging in age from 18-20 (M=18.66 yr, SD=0.63). For females, perceived elementary school weight in comparison to their peers significantly predicted current weight concerns, p<0.05. For males, perceived elementary school height in comparison to their peers significantly predicted a history of weight concerns, p<0.05. Retrospective height and weight in high school did not impact current weight concerns for either males or females.