General Parenting and Hispanic Mothers' Feeding Practices and Styles.

Thomas G Power,Jennifer O Fisher,Teresia M O'Connor,Sheryl O Hughes,Nilda Micheli,Maria A Papaioannou

doi:10.3390/ijerph18020380

Abstract

Previous research has shown that general parenting styles, general parenting dimensions, maternal feeding styles, and maternal feeding practices all show specific relationships with the weight status of young children. This study examined the relationships between general parenting and maternal feeding styles/practices in a sample of 187 Hispanic mothers with low incomes. As part of a larger study, mothers of preschool children were recruited through Head Start programs and completed validated questionnaires assessing their general parenting, feeding styles, and feeding practices. Results identified numerous associations between general parenting dimensions and specific feeding practices: i.e., maternal nurturance was positively associated with healthy eating guidance and feeding responsiveness; inconsistency was positively associated with restriction for weight and promotion of overconsumption; follow through on discipline was positively associated with monitoring, healthy eating guidance, and feeding responsiveness; and family organization was positively associated with monitoring and healthy eating guidance. General parenting styles were associated with feeding practices as well, with authoritative mothers showing the highest levels of healthy eating guidance and authoritarian mothers showing the lowest levels of monitoring. There were no significant associations between mothers’ general parenting styles and mothers’ feeding styles. Implications of these findings for the prevention of childhood obesity are considered.

Highlights

It is well established that general parenting practices and styles are associated with childhood obesity [1,2,3]
Examination of these statistics showed that one variable, the healthy eating variety subscale of the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire (CFPQ), showed very little variance (93% had a value of 4.0 or greater on a 5-point scale), so this variable was dropped from subsequent analyses
Hughes et al [60] study showed findings consistent with the literature on general parenting style and children’s adjustment [79,80]—children of authoritative mothers showed the highest levels of self-regulation and social adjustment and children of indulgent mothers ate the most kilocalories in the absence of hunger—a finding consistent with Olvera and Power’s [65] finding that indulgent general parenting among Hispanic mothers with low incomes is associated with higher levels of childhood obesity

Summary

Introduction

It is well established that general (non-food related) parenting practices and styles are associated with childhood obesity [1,2,3]. The authoritative general parenting style (i.e., high demandingness and high responsiveness) is associated with lower child weight status than authoritarian, indulgent, or uninvolved parenting. Children with positive relationships with their parents or whose parents were responsive or showed high levels of maturity demands had lower levels of obesity than those whose parents did not. Correlational studies show that parental feeding styles and practices show significant relationships with child weight status [1,5]. Restriction is usually positively associated with child weight status, whereas pressure to eat often shows a negative relationship [5]

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