The ways parents or caregivers interact with children around mealtimes can have unintended consequences.
October 7/Leicestershire, U.K./Loughborough University -- The ways parents or caregivers interact with children around mealtimes can have unintended consequences, according to a new report in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The study found that teenagers' negative attitudes toward eating -- or eating psychopathology -- may result from their perceptions of their parents' attitudes about food.
Most parents have the best intentions and want their child to be healthy. As a result, they may inadvertently encourage or pressure that child to eat more food than he or she wants to, or to consume a particular type of food the child does not want, said lead author Emma Haycraft, Ph.D., of the Centre for Research into Eating Disorders at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, U.K.