Maternal child-feeding style during the weaning period: Association with infant weight and maternal eating style

A controlling maternal child-feeding style has been show to have negative consequences for child weight and eating style for children over the age of 12 months. Maternal restriction is associated with increased consumption of food if given free access and child overweight. Pressure to eat conversely is associated with picky eating and a lower child weight. Little research however has considered the influence of maternal feeding style under 1 year, during the period when infants are being introduced to complementary foods. In the current study, 642 mothers with a child aged 6–12 months completed a copy of the Child Feeding Questionnaire (Birch, Fisher, Grimm-Thomas, Markey, Sawyer & Johnson 2001), the Dutch Eating Questionnaire (Van Strien, Frijters, Bergers, & Defares 1986) and reported infant and maternal weight. Differences in maternal feeding style were identifiable during this period and related to infant weight and maternal weight and eating style. Infant weight was positively correlated with maternal use of restriction, monitoring and concern for infant weight. Moreover, mothers high in restraint, external and emotional eating reported higher levels of concern for infant weight, restriction and monitoring and perceived their infants to be larger. The findings suggest that the extent to which controlling feeding practices are used is influenced by infant and maternal personal weight concerns even at this early stage. Potentially, these early behaviours could have long term consequences for child weight and eating style.

Research highlights
► Differences in maternal feeding style are identifiable during the weaning period.
► Increased maternal restriction is associated with greater perceived infant weight.
► Maternal negative eating styles are associated with negative child feeding styles.
► Early maternal concerns for infant weight may affect later weight and eating style.