PARENTS AND CHILDRENS ADIPOSITY AND EATING STYLE

Objective. To investigate children's ability to self-regulate energy i ntake and to determine whether individual differences in the precision of food intake regulation are related to children's anthropometric me asures. We collected information pertaining to parental adiposity and dieting practices, as well as mothers' child-feeding practices. Of spe cial interest was the degree of control imposed by mothers over their children's food intake. Our intent was to explore whether these variab les might influence children's regulation of energy intake. Subjects a nd setting. Seventy-seven 3-5-year-old children who attended a univers ity preschool setting and their parents participated in this experimen t. Measurements and main results. Children completed controlled, two-p art meals used to estimate their ability to adjust food intake in resp onse to changes in caloric density of the diet. An eating index, refle cting children's precision in the ability to regulate energy intake, w as correlated to children's anthropometric measures. These correlation s provided evidence for a relation between children's body fat stores and their responsiveness to caloric density cues: Pearson correlation coefficients revealed that children with greater body fat stores were less able to regulate energy intake accurately. The best predictor of children's ability to regulate energy intake was parental control in t he feeding situation: mothers who were more controlling of their child ren's food intake had children who showed less ability to self-regulat e energy intake (r = -.67, P < .0001). Conclusions. These findings sug gest that the optimal environment for children's development of self-c ontrol of energy intake is that in which parents provide healthy food choices but allow children to assume control of how much they consume.