Inducing Children's Emotional Eating

University of Birmingham

Status: Completed

Conditions: Emotional Eating Behaviour

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01122290

H10543 (Lboro)

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background: Children's emotional eating is related to greater BMI and less healthy diet but little is known about the early development of this behavior.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the relationships between preschool children's emotional eating and parental feeding practices using experimental manipulation of child mood and food intake in a laboratory setting.

Design: 25 3-5 year old children and their mothers sat together and ate a standard meal to satiety. Mothers completed questionnaires about their feeding practices. Children were assigned to a control or negative mood condition. Children's consumption of snack foods in the absence of hunger was measured.

Enrollment: 64 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 3 to 5 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Child age between 3 years and 5 years
• No disease/disorder affecting eating
• No learning disability

Exclusion criteria

• Any child brought in by a (non-primary care-giving) grandparent
• Child BMI at extreme of sample
• Incongruous mood shift to condition
• Child of non-english speaking/reading parent

Trial design

64 participants in 2 patient groups

negative emotion

Description:

Children experienced induction of mild negative emotion through a jigsaw with a missing piece (negative emotion group)

neutral emotion

Description:

Vs. Same task with No missing piece (neutral emotion).