Regulatory parental feeding behaviors, emotion suppression, and emotional eating in the absence of hunger: Examining parent-adolescent dyadic associations

Abstract

ObjectiveThe present study aimed to improve the understanding of inter- and intrapersonal processes implicated in emotional eating using a large community sample of parent-adolescent dyads. Method: Participants included 1823 parent and adolescent dyads who completed the National Cancer Institute's Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating Study. Parents and adolescents each completed measures assessing parents' feeding behaviors, and participants' own emotional functioning and eating behaviors. Actor-partner interdependence models examined dyadic associations among participants' reports of parents' regulatory feeding behaviors (allowing adolescents to eat for emotional comfort purposes, controlling adolescents' “junk” food/sugary drink intakes), emotion suppression, and emotional eating in the absence of hunger. Results: Multiple within-person, cross-dyad member, and divergent parent versus adolescent dyadic effects were identified that differed based on the parental feeding behavior that parents and adolescents reported on. For example, adolescents' reports that their parents regulate their “junk” food/sugary drink intakes were associated with lower levels of their own emotion suppression and, in turn, lower levels of both their own and their parents' emotional eating, whereas parents' reports that they regulate their adolescents' “junk” food/sugary drink intakes were associated with higher levels of their own emotion suppression and emotional eating. Conclusions: These findings underscore the complex interconnectivity among parental feeding behaviors, emotion dysregulation, and emotional eating within the parent-adolescent dyadic context, and support the use of preventive disordered eating interventions focused on enhancing healthy parent feeding behaviors and adaptive emotion regulation skills from a family-based perspective.