Maternal influences on binge eating behaviors in children. (January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: La Barrie, Dominique; Hardy, Raven A.; Clendinen, Cherita; Jain, Jahnvi; Bradley, Bekh; Teer, Andrew P.; Michopoulos, Vasiliki; Vance, L. Alexander; Hinrichs, Rebecca; Jovanovic, Tanja; Fani, Negar
• Is Part Of: Psychiatry research. Volume 295(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Subjects: Emotion regulation -- Binge eating -- Executive functioning -- Intergenerational -- Maternal cognition -- Dyads; Psychiatry -- Periodicals; Psychiatry -- periodicals; Psychiatrie -- Périodiques; 616.89
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psychres.2020.113600
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0165-1781

Abstract

Highlights: Maternal executive function predicts binge eating behaviors in children. Emotion dysregulation in children corresponds with their binge eating behaviors. Maternal cognitive control may influence self-regulation in children. Maladaptive eating behaviors in children was linked to parental self-regulation. Abstract: Binge eating in childhood has been linked to adverse future health outcomes. Parental factors, such as parents' emotion regulation and executive functioning, are likely to influence children's self-regulatory behaviors, including eating. Executive functioning describes a range of higher-order cognitive functions such as planning, abstraction, inhibitory control and working memory, which involves the ability to learn, update and manipulate new information while managing distractions. No studies have examined associations between maternal emotion regulation and executive functioning and the child's maladaptive eating patterns, which was the goal of the present study. Forty-eight mother and child pairs completed self-report clinical measures of emotion dysregulation and attentional control, and mothers completed a brief neuropsychological battery, which included executive functioning measures. Child's disordered eating was measured with the Child Binge Eating Disorder Scale. Linear regression results indicated that mother's performance on a working memory task and child's emotion dysregulation was significantly associated with child's binge eating symptoms ( R 2 = 0.34). These data, which reveal that maternal executive functioning is associated with self-regulatory behaviors in children, indicate a possible mechanism through which maladaptive eating behaviors may emerge early in development. This relationship merits further exploration in larger-scale prospective intergenerational studies.