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| Can food rewards lead to emotional eating in later life?
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New research out of the UK suggests that using food as a reward or treat may cause children to rely on food to deal with their emotions later in life.
The longitudinal study of parents and children, conducted by Aston, Loughborough and Birmingham Universities, looked at different feeding practices and how parents use food with children between the ages of three-five. The researchers then followed up with the children when they were aged five-seven to explore whether earlier feeding practices influenced the development of emotional eating in children.
The researchers assessed how likely the children were to eat snack foods, or play with toys, when they were not hungry but were mildly stressed. The results showed that children were much more likely to emotionally eat at ages 5-7 if their parents had reported using more food as a reward and were overtly controlling with foods when the children were younger.
According to the researchers, high levels of obesity in children, and the associated health risks being increasingly evident at a younger age, means that understanding why certain people turn to particular types of food at times of stress or anxiety could encourage healthier eating practices.
One of the study authors, Dr Claire Farrow, a senior lecturer in psychology at Aston University said:
"As a parent, there is often a natural instinct to try and protect our young children from eating 'bad' foods: those high in fat, sugar or salt. Instead we often use these food types as a treat or a reward, or even as a response to ease pain if children are upset.
The evidence from our initial research shows that in doing this, we may be teaching children to use these foods to cope with their different emotions, and in turn unintentionally teaching them to emotionally eat later in life."
While, more research needs to be done to identify the significance of these findings on eating patterns long-term, early indications suggest that the relationship children have with food is often formed early in life, and in part is informed by the ways that children are fed and taught to use food.
Dr Farrow concludes:
"Eating patterns can usually be tracked across life, so those who learn to use food as a tool to deal with emotional distress early are much more likely to follow a similar pattern of eating later on in adult life.
Often when people "emotionally eat" they are using high calorie, high fat, energy dense foods which are not conducive to health. Learning more about how we can teach children to manage their food intake in a healthy way can help us to develop best practice advice and guidelines for families and those involved in feeding children.
We know that in adults emotional eating is linked to eating disorders and obesity, so if we can learn more about the development of emotional eating in childhood, we can hopefully develop resources and advice to help prevent the development of emotional eating in children."
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