Actions for Examining the Relationship Between Home Food Environment and Eating in the Absence of Hunger in Children

Email RIS file
Bookmark
Report an Issue

Examining the Relationship Between Home Food Environment and Eating in the Absence of Hunger in Children

Author
Li, Weilin
Published
[University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2022.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Shearer, Gregory
Access Online

Availability

I Want It
I Want It

Finding items...

Graduate Program
Restrictions on Access
Open Access.
Summary
Eating in the absence of hunger (EAH) is one of the potential contributors to childhood obesity. It has been found to be associated with children's weight status and parental feeding practices. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the home food environment and children's EAH, as well as to test the moderation effect of familial risk for obesity. This study was a secondary data analysis of the ongoing longitudinal cohort study, Brain Mechanisms of Overeating in Children Study (i.e., the "Food and Brain Study"). A total of 88 young children (mean: 7.88 ± 0.67 years) were included. Data used in this study was collected from 3 separate visits. Children consumed an ad libitum test-meal and then completed the Eating in the Absence of Hunger protocol in a lab setting. Home food environment was measured by the parental self-reported Family Food Behavior Survey (FFBS). In contrast to our hypotheses, we did not find any significant associations between the home food environment and children's EAH levels using Pearson correlation and linear regression models. Therefore, we did not proceed to the moderator analyses at first. The moderator analyses were added after the thesis was completed and there were no significant interaction effects found. Additional analyses were conducted with the use of multiple independent t-tests. The results showed that compared to their low-risk counterparts, children with high familial risk for obesity had a significantly higher score on the FFBS Organization subscale, which is reverse-scored indicating a poorer environment (t = -3.748, p < 0.001). Children of low food security households had significantly higher energy intake from EAH snacks (t = -2.658, p = 0.005). Our findings highlight the importance of food insecurity in children's hedonic eating. More work is needed to clarify the influence of home food environment components on children's eating behaviors.
Other Subject(s)
Genre(s)
Dissertation Note
M.S. Pennsylvania State University 2022.
Technical Details
The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
View MARC record | catkey: 38970340