Objective: To examine the relationship between maternal cognitions related to promoting a healthy lifestyle in their child, maternal feeding practices, children's eating styles, and child weight status in children aged 4 to 6 years.
Methods: Cross-sectional questionnaire data were collected in 251 Dutch mothers of preschoolers. Structural equation modeling was used to test the fit of a model that assumed maternal health cognitions would predict maternal feeding practices, which in turn would predict children's eating styles and child weight status. Explorative analyses were conducted to examine child characteristics as predictors of maternal health cognitions and feeding practices.
Results: Mothers with higher self-efficacy used fewer pressure-to-eat feeding techniques, which in turn was related to less avoidant eating styles in children. In addition, mothers who perceived more benefits of a healthy lifestyle used more restriction techniques, which in turn predicted a more approach-oriented eating style in children, which was also related to higher child standard deviation scores body mass index. Finally, children with an avoidant eating style had mothers who perceived more barriers and reported less self-efficacy.
Conclusion: Self-efficacy and perceived benefits relate to maternal feeding practices and eating styles of the child. However, more perceived benefits of a healthy lifestyle were associated with inadequate feeding practices. Therefore, interventions targeted at mothers to reduce child overweight should focus not only on reinforcing perceived benefits of a healthy lifestyle but also on how the mother can translate her attitudes into adaptive parenting to achieve the desired health outcomes.