Background: Loss of control (LOC) eating in children leads to excessive weight gain. However, few studies have investigated the eating behavior of children with LOC eating and psychological and familial factors that maintain the eating behavior.
Objective: This study sought to measure food intake in children with LOC eating and to examine maintenance through negative mood and parent-child mealtime interactions.
Design: Children with or without LOC eating (n = 120, aged 8-13 y) consumed a parent-child test meal and a child-only meal, consisting of snack food, after the induction of negative mood. Food intake, mood, sense of LOC, hunger, satiety, and mealtime interactions were assessed.
Results: Regardless of mood induction, children with LOC eating showed a greater intake of energy, fat, and protein and a greater sense of LOC than did those without LOC in the child-only snack group, which was accounted for by greater baseline hunger and satiety. Independently, children with high recurrent LOC eating had a greater food intake at both test meals than did those with low recurrent LOC eating. Overall, mealtime interactions did not differ between groups, but parents of children with LOC eating expressed more weight-related critique than did parents of children without LOC eating outside negative mood induction. Predictors of food intake were greater antecedent hunger or less satiety, stronger antecedent sense of LOC, and more weight-related critique.
Conclusions: The results showed objective abnormalities in the eating behavior of children with LOC eating that were mostly unrelated to negative mood or dysfunctional mealtime interactions. Further research is required to specify factors maintaining LOC eating.