Relationship of baby led weaning to other parenting and feeding constructs.

BACKGROUND: Baby-led weaning (BLW), a popular complementary feeding style, prioritizes exploration of foods, independence of children in eating, and eating with family. Though BLW has received popular attention, empirical evidence is limited. This study measured parents' reports of BLW, parenting style, and feeding practices; analyzed BLW's relation to children's dietary intake; examined how demographic variables such as age, parent sex, education, and marital status related to the prevalence of using BLW. METHODS: This cross sectional study recruited 313 parents with children ages 6-30 months via Cloud Research, an online survey platform where individuals complete surveys for compensation. Hierarchical regressions examined how feeding style, dietary intake, and parenting style related to independence, exploration, and family subscales of BLW after controlling for relevant demographics. FINDINGS: The majority (69.3%) of participants identified as female, white (76.6%), middle-class (52.4%), married (69%), and a third had a bachelor's degree (37.4%). Restrictive feeding practices, Ellyn Satter's division of responsibility, and the parents' sex were significant predictors of all subscales of BLW. DISCUSSION: Parents who use BLW allowed for an autonomous food experience and were less likely to restrict or control the child's eating. BLW appears to be related to, but distinct from, well-researched parent feeding practices such as restriction and division of responsibility. APPLICATION TO PRACTICE: These findings might be useful in education and interventions for healthcare professionals. Future research on BLW should examine how child behavior and nutrition outcomes compare to other feeding practices.

Higher meal disengagement and meal presentation are uniquely related to psychological distress and lower quality of life in undergraduate students.

Objective: Picky eating, which occurs in emerging adulthood and is associated with psychological distress and quality of life, has historically been conceptualized as unidimensional despite research suggesting it is a multifaceted construct. Participants: An undergraduate sample (N = 509; Mage = 19.96). Methods: A cross-sectional survey assessed picky eating facets (food variety, meal disengagement, meal presentation, and taste aversion), disordered eating, anxiety, depression, stress, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and social phobia symptoms, and quality of life. Results: Meal disengagement was uniquely related to higher anxiety, depression, stress, and social phobia symptoms and lower quality of life, whereas meal presentation was uniquely related to higher anxiety, stress, and OCD symptoms, beyond covariates and disordered eating. Food variety and taste aversion were not uniquely related to outcomes. Conclusions: Considering picky eating multidimensionally may yield important insights beyond the broader construct in terms of its relationship with psychological well-being in undergraduates.

Acculturative stress and eating disorder psychopathology: A meta-analysis.

The present meta-analysis aims to extend Doris and colleagues' (2015) systematic review and address the comprehensive, quantitative gap in the relation between acculturative stress and eating disorder psychopathology reported by studies in the past 20 years. A total of 14 eligible studies were included in our meta-analysis. Across all study samples, there were 2681 participants. The overall relation between eating disorder psychopathology and acculturative stress measurements was examined. Moderation analyses were run to investigate the substantial heterogeneity detected between studies. Results indicated a small effect size for the relationship between eating pathology behaviors and acculturative stress. These results provide insight for clinicians working with individuals who are experiencing acculturative stress, as well as highlight future research directions.

To feed or let eat! A scale of independence, exploration, and family to measure baby-led weaning as a complementary feeding approach.

BACKGROUND: This article reports the development and validation of a measure of parents' use of baby-led weaning (BLW). BLW is a child-centred approach to complementary feeding where the infant is allowed to eat whole foods (rather than purees) and explore a variety of foods and textures. To date, parents' use of BLW has been assessed using either single items or a wide variety of measures. METHOD: In this study, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses on independent samples supported three BLW subscales: independence, exploration, and family. RESULTS: The final 13-item scale showed adequate fit statistics and good reliability (χ2 (62) = 115.02, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.98; TLI = 0.98; RMSEA = 0.05; SRMR = 0.06; exploration a = 0.738; family a = 0.715; independence a = 0.809). In addition, the scale demonstrated good external validity and related in theoretically expected ways to an infant feeding-style measure and parent report of complementary feeding approach. This study was limited as it was mostly white parents, and the scale should be validated on a more diverse sample. CONCLUSIONS: Future research can use this scale to examine if BLW relates to infant taste preferences, parenting styles, and child eating behaviours to improve child nutrition and health outcomes.

Children's Influence on Parents: the Bidirectional Relationship in Family Meal Selection.

Feeding a child in the 21st century can be challenging. A child's diet is thought to be a parent's responsibility, and numerous studies have explored how parents influence their child's food intake through food availability, feeding practices, and modeling. However, this relationship is likely bidirectional such that the child influences the parent as well (sometimes called "pester power"). Pester power has been studied in grocery stores and restaurants. However, no research to date investigates how children influence parent's food selection when eating at home. This study addresses this gap by asking parent and child dyads (N = 79, 95% white) to create meals together and separately. Forty 6-8 and thirty-nine 13-15 year-olds participated. Most of the parents (97.5%) and children (49.4%) who participated were female; and parents reported an average annual income of over 80,000 dollars (68.3%). Mean differences in the nutrient content of the meals were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVAs to examine the strength of influence in the bidirectional relationship. Results suggested when children were present for meal selection, they exerted influence over their parents for more palatable items. When choosing foods as a dyad versus when the parent selected meals for the family, the foods contained more calories, sugar, and less fiber. Protein was the only nutrient that parents influenced in their child's selections. These findings have important implications for understanding the often-overlooked bidirectional dynamic of the feeding relationship, and the accompanying health outcomes of child dietary intake.

'Quarantine 15': Pre-registered findings on stress and concern about weight gain before/during COVID-19 in relation to caregivers' eating pathology.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has dramatically altered daily activities including eating and physical activity behaviors, which in turn may be related to eating pathology. Those who care for children (henceforth caregivers) may face the brunt of these changes, but little research has examined the consequences of COVID-19 on eating pathology in caregivers. A community sample of caregivers (N = 140) completed a cross-sectional online survey assessing demographics, stress and concern about weight gain before/during COVID-19, disordered eating (Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire-Short Form), and emotional eating (Emotional Eating Scale-Revised). Significant positive relationships emerged between stress and concern about weight gain before/during COVID-19 and disordered eating, emotional eating-depression, emotional eating-anger/anxiety, and emotional eating-boredom. Stress and concern about weight gain during, but not before, COVID-19 positively predicted variance in disordered eating and emotional eating. Stress was associated with lower emotional eating-boredom when concern about weight gain during COVID-19 was low. Stress was associated with lower emotional eating-depression when concern about weight gain before COVID-19 was low, but when high, stress was associated with higher emotional eating-depression. Stress and concern about weight gain before/during COVID-19 may be relevant to worsened disordered eating and emotional eating in caregivers, a neglected population in the literature. Targeting concern about weight gain may weaken the relationship between stress and emotional eating-depression and emotional eating-boredom among caregivers in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.