The Relation between Parent Feeding Style and Children's Eating Behaviour.

The influence that parents have on their child has been continuously investigated among many different domains within psychology. In particular, previous research has studied parental feeding styles and the relationship it may have to children's developmental outcomes, such as weight status. Parental feeding style has been characterized into four main groups; Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive and Uninvolved. Yet little has been accounted towards the influence of children's eating behaviours; such as their enjoyment of food, emotional under/over eating, and or their response to food for example. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between parental feeding styles and children's eating behaviours. Analyses of variance showed that authoritative feeding style was associated with food approach subscales such as greater food responsiveness and greater desire to drink, as well as, food avoidance subscales such as satiety response. Permissive parenting style was found to be associated with food approach subscales such as greater food enjoyment. Pearson Product- Moment Correlation analyses also showed that feeding styles were significantly associated with various food approach and food avoidance subscales.bsc_Psyunpub2210_ethesesunpu