Persistently Obese Youth: Interactions Between Parenting Styles and Feeding Practices With Child Temperament

Objective. To assess the interaction of parent and child characteristics with feeding practices and mealtime functioning. Design. Longitudinal, predictive study comparing baseline characteristics with follow-up assessments. Participants. The caregivers of 52 persistently obese youth and 32 nonoverweight comparison youth completed measurements of child temperament, parental feeding practices, parenting styles, and interactions during mealtimes. Results. Adolescents with persistent obesity were significantly more likely to be parented using problematic feeding practices when parents also reported difficult child temperaments. Additionally, adolescents with persistent obesity and difficult temperaments were significantly more likely to have lower levels of positive mealtime interactions. Conclusion. Persistently obese youth are at increased risk for problematic parental feeding practices and mealtime functioning, particularly when youth are described as having difficult temperaments. These results indicate that further investigations are needed to better understand the mechanisms linking parent and child characteristics with health-related behaviors for adolescents with obesity.