Eten met plezier?: Ouderlijke druk en voedselneofobie bij jonge Nederlandse kinderen

Abstract Humans develop their eating habits and food preferences at an early age, influencing dietary patterns later in life. Parents play a crucial role by determining what and how much their children eat. While positive strategies, such as repeated exposure to new foods, support healthy habits, controlling practices like pressuring children to eat may increase food neophobia and reduce eating enjoyment. Ensuring children enjoy eating is important, as it contributes to the development of healthy eating habits. However, recent studies show a decline in healthy eating among Dutch children, while obesity is rising. This highlights the need to better understand parental influences on children’s eating behaviour. This study examines the relationships between eating enjoyment, pressure to eat, and food neophobia in Dutch children, focusing on families already experiencing difficulties with their child’s eating behaviour. The aim was to gain insight into these relationships to contribute...Show moreAbstract Humans develop their eating habits and food preferences at an early age, influencing dietary patterns later in life. Parents play a crucial role by determining what and how much their children eat. While positive strategies, such as repeated exposure to new foods, support healthy habits, controlling practices like pressuring children to eat may increase food neophobia and reduce eating enjoyment. Ensuring children enjoy eating is important, as it contributes to the development of healthy eating habits. However, recent studies show a decline in healthy eating among Dutch children, while obesity is rising. This highlights the need to better understand parental influences on children’s eating behaviour. This study examines the relationships between eating enjoyment, pressure to eat, and food neophobia in Dutch children, focusing on families already experiencing difficulties with their child’s eating behaviour. The aim was to gain insight into these relationships to contribute to more effective, age-specific interventions and prevention strategies to promote healthy eating. Three sub-questions explored the relationship between pressure to eat and eating enjoyment, the possible mediating role of food neophobia, and the possible moderating effect of child age. This correlational study used data from an online questionnaire, completed by 52 Dutch-speaking parents of children aged 0 to 6 years with problematic eating behaviour. Results indicated that parental pressure to eat was not directly associated with eating enjoyment or food neophobia. However, higher scores on food neophobia were significantly associated to lower scores on eating enjoyment. No evidence was found for a mediating role of food neophobia or a moderating effect of age. In conclusion, this study does not provide strong evidence for associations between pressure to eat, food neophobia and eating enjoyment. Still, the link between higher neophobia and lower eating enjoyment underlines its importance, highlighting the need for further research with more diverse samples.Show less

Leiden University Student Repository

Documents

In Collections

Eten met plezier? Ouderlijke druk en voedselneofobie bij jonge Nederlandse kinderen