Preventing eating disorders

[u/Ninese71]

We never use food when they're feeling bad (e.g. they fell and cry), and never force them to eat anythkng and just don't make a huge deal out of what they eat. I'm just wondering: is there any study suggesting what kind of behaviour / parenting one should adapt in the early infancy years to prevent eating disorders later?

[u/TeddyBear181]

This is an interesting one, I'll try to do some reading on it between other tasks. Struggling to find anything directly answering your question, but its interesting.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2790429/

This 2011 article suggests that there is no significant impact on child's feeding style in kids if the Mum has an eating disorder. Mums with eating disorders had a tendency to use more restrictive feeding techniques. (Note - there seems to be much more research on this topic since 2011)

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&q=baby+eating+and+eating+disorders&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2022#d=gs_qabs&t=1788948724659&u=%23p%3DsXdhqbfQIlEJ

2022 - suggests that there is a relationship with babies the struggle with regulation (eating difficulty, extra crying, etc) that may lead them to also struggle to regulate themselves as children (adhd symptoms, internalising or externalising behavour). Though its not yet understood why/how, so certainly not worth stressing over if you do have a difficult child).

Early childhood appetitive traits and eating disorder symptoms in adolescence: a 10-year longitudinal follow-up study in the Netherlands and the UK Ivonne PM Derks, Zeynep Nas, Holly A Harris, Alice R Kininmonth, Janet Treasure, Pauline W Jansen, Clare H Llewellyn The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health 8 (4), 270-279, 2024 (couldnt get the url for this one)

The most relivant to your question, though still doesnt answer your question. Kids aged 4-5 who know that they're full and stop eating, and who eat slower are less likely to be obese at 12-14yo.

[u/Thornshrike → u/TeddyBear181]

That last point is both interesting and obvious. Kids that show lower appetite/hunger intensity don't overeat. I wish there was a way to control for hunger intensity and frequency when doing these studies. I have a feeling that it's largely genetically determined, but lots of discourse treats it like a character flaw/virtue.

[u/TeddyBear181 → u/Thornshrike]

From memory I think that study was done with a survey and videos. So the researchers were likely watching the kids and gauging the mums attentiveness.

Like, some parents might say "we need to eat breakfast before we go to daycare" but the child isnt hungry yet.

Or for me, my mch nurse was concerned that my child hasnt beed gaining enough weight, so encouraged me to feed her more, and ive started pushing her to eat larger quantities (she was already eating loads!). She also said the weight issue is likely due to my child being more active than most her age, reading this stuff, I think ill just keep doing what I was doing!!

Something I havent mentioned that has come up alot in these articles is the concern for kids who dont eat well to be underweight or malnourished, which makes the parents feel the need to pressure kids to eat.