Science Daily – Staff Writer
“Parents who use very overly controlling feeding practices with their children, such as using food as a reward or a treat, could be unintentionally teaching their children to rely on food to deal with their emotions. These children may be more likely to ’emotionally eat’ later in childhood. These are the conclusions of a longitudinal study of parents and their children carried out by Dr Claire Farrow from Aston University and her colleagues at Loughborough and Birmingham universities. The study looked at how parents used food and the different feeding practices that they regularly used with children when they were aged three-to-five. The researchers then followed the children up when they were aged 5-7 to explore whether earlier feeding practices influenced the development of emotional eating in the children.”(more)