Parents' feeding practices (i.e., controlling versus autonomy-promoting) are associated with child obesity risk. Yet extant work examining factors such as parent obesogenic eating behaviors and concern about child weight in relation to child feeding has only focused on one parent, typically the mother. The potential influence of the parent's partner in shaping family feeding practices is rarely considered. In other words, the current conceptual model is limited to an individual-level, instead of a dyadic conceptual or analytic approach. This limitation prevents us from conceptualizing the family as a complex, integrated whole in which both parents' child feeding practices are interdependent and thus possibly influenced by each other's characteristics. For example, a parent whose partner is concerned about a child's unhealthy eating may engage in more controlling feeding in response to his/her partner' concerns, despite not having such concerns him or herself. Interdependence theory offers a novel way to model these interactive processes in child feeding. According to interdependence theory, any given individual outcome (e.g., child feeding) in a relationship should be conceptualized as the independent and conjoint effects of the two members' characteristics. When these ideas are applied to parent dyads in relation to child feeding, it is reasonable to hypothesize that parents' feeding practices should be related to their own characteristics (actor effect), partner characteristics (partner effect), and the interaction or mutuality between two parents' characteristics (interaction effect). More nuanced understanding of how individual parent own obesogenic eating behaviors and concern about child weight dyadically interact to shape their own and their partners' child feeding practices may be critical in order to design and implement intervention strategies that address the development of adaptive feeding practices across the entire family system to reduce child obesity risk. Thus, we will use the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model to examine the independent and interdependent contributions of parent characteristics in relation to their child feeding practices.
Aims are, among couples (opposite-sex parents and same-sex parents) with children from 3 to 5 years of age:
Aim 1 : To examine actor and partner effects of parent obesogenic eating (i.e., restrained, external, and emotional) and concern about child weight on child feeding practices (i.e., controlling vs. autonomy- promoting feeding). We hypothesize that individual parent factors will relate to their own (actor effect) and their partner's (partner effect) feeding practices.
Aim 2 : To examine the interaction effect of parent obesogenic eating and concern about child weight on child feeding practices. We hypothesize that the interaction effect of parent factors will independently relate to feeding practices over and above actor and partner effects.
Parents' feeding practices (e.g., controlling and autonomy-promoting feeding), are associated with child obesity risk. Yet, prior work on factors (i.e., parent obesogenic eating and concern about child weight) that may predict such feeding practices has only focused on one parent, typically the mother. The influence of other caregivers has not been considered, despite recent calls to highlight the role that fathers may play in child feeding. Further, as both parents' contributions to child feeding are not independent, but instead may interrelate, it is critical to take a modeling approach that incorporates dyadic influences in order to articulate how individual parent obesogenic eating and concern about child weight interact to shape child feeding practices. Improved understanding of how individual parent may each contribute to child feeding is an essential step toward developing more nuanced family-based interventions geared toward preventing childhood obesity.
