Parental Modeling of Healthy Eating Improves Eating Behavior in Children

Parents' feeding practices influence the eating habits, and potentially the growth, of their children. For example, parental pressure to eat has been linked with lower body-mass index (BMI) in children. Most studies of parental feeding practices and child eating behavior have been cross-sectional and could not determine cause versus effect. Researchers in Australia analyzed longitudinal questionnaire data completed by 156 mothers of children ages 2 to 4 years. The questionnaire addressed parental feeding practices (pressure to eat, restriction of certain foods, monitoring intake, modeling healthy eating) and subsequent child eating behaviors (eating when not hungry, picky or fussy eating, interest in new foods).

In analyses that controlled f…