Rewarding children with food can trigger emotional eating as they get older, a new study has revealed.
Parents who use overly controlling feeding practices with their children, such as using food as a treat, could be unintentionally teaching their offspring to rely on food to deal with their emotions.
These children are more likely to ’emotionally eat’ as adults, and as a result could be at risk of gaining weight or enduring eating disorders.
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.
Rewarding children with treats that are high in fat, sugar or salt can encourage emotional eating as they get older, expert warn
‘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.’
Working with researchers at Loughborough and Birmingham universities, Dr Farrow looked at how parents used food and the different feeding practices they regularly used with children when they were aged between three and five.
They then followed up with the children when they were five to seven years old, to explore whether earlier feeding practices influenced the development of emotional eating in children.
Scientists at Aston, Loughborough and Birmingham universities note that emotional eating is linked to eating disorders as well as obesity
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 five to seven if their parents had reported using more food as a reward and were overtly controlling with foods when the children were younger.
With the high levels of obesity in children, and its associated health risks being increasingly evident at a younger age, understanding why certain people turn to particular types of food at times of stress or anxiety could help in encouraging healthier eating practices.
The researchers noted more studies are needed to identify the significance of these findings on eating patterns in the long-term, but early indications are 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 said: ‘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.’
