1 . While it is known that parents control the dietary choices of their children during early childhood, the increasing independence experienced during adolescence brings with it more freedom when it comes to food choices. This time of life also brings enormous physical and emotional changes in a young person, which is often associated with an increase in comfort eating, or eating as a means to relieve stress. A recent study investigates how various feeding practices used by parents impact the emotional eating behavior of adolescents.
The initial study was conducted in 2017 with 218 families. Additionally, data collected in 2013 were also available. One parent from each family completed the Child Feeding Questionnaire, as well as the Child Feeding Practices Questionnaire, and both adolescent and parent completed the Dutch Eating Behavior Questionnaire. The adolescent’s body weight and height were measured by researchers. The four years between 2013 — 2017 covered the years from late childhood to mid-teens.
The study found that when parents used food as a reward, or restricted and monitored an adolescent’s access to food, this was associated with an increased tendency by the adolescent to use emotional eating as a strategy to deal with their emotions. On the other hand, involving a child in meal preparations had the opposite effect — it was associated with higher levels of emotional regulation and lower levels of emotional eating in the adolescent participants.
Additionally, the researchers found a negative link between the extent to which parents restrained (克制) their own eating behavior and the use of emotional eating by their adolescent children. This means that the more a parent limited his or her own consumption of food for the purpose of health or dietary goals, the less the adolescent child used emotional eating as a means of regulating his or her own emotions.
According to study lead author Joanna Klosowska, restrictive parenting was most damaging, whereas restrained eating by the parent seemed to be the most beneficial. “Additional research is required to understand the way in which restrained eating demonstrated by a parent impacts the emotional eating of a child,” said Klosowska.
1. What does the underlined word “it” in paragraph 1 refer to?A.Parents’ dietary choice. | B.Parents’ eating behavior. |
C.Children’s way of relieving stress. | D.Children’s increasing independence. |
A.They studied parents’ body weight and height. |
B.They investigated children’s eating behaviors. |
C.They interviewed parents about their emotional health. |
D.They assessed parents’ understanding of children’s care needs. |
A.Restrained eating by parents is bad for their children. |
B.Emotional eating by teens is influenced by their parents. |
C.Parents seldom engage their children in family meal preparations. |
D.Using food as a reward can help children form good eating habits. |
A.Factors resulting in parents’ and adolescents’ food choices. |
B.The underlying logic behind parents’ restrictive parenting. |
C.What effect emotional eating can generate on children’s health. |
D.How parents’ restrained eating influences children’s emotional eating. |