Featured Post from Aston University

Pre-school children’s emotional eating partly shaped by innate food drive - research

Apr 13, 2022

3 min

Dr Claire Farrow



New research at Aston University is helping to unpick the complex connections between the eating habits of children and their mothers.


The research, by PhD student Rebecca Stone, surveyed 185 mothers of young children aged between three and five, asking about their eating habits and those of their children. The findings are published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.


Children pick up lots of behaviours by copying their parents – and this is true of their eating habits as well. The aim of the new research was to see how much of children’s emotional eating is explained by the way mothers use food as part of their parenting practices as well as the children’s own attitudes to food more generally.


‘Emotional eating’ is when we turn to food, such as cakes, chocolate and snacks, not because we’re hungry but to compensate for when we’re feeling sad, low or anxious. The survey included questions for mothers about how much they and their children ate in response to emotional states. It also asked about how much children were motivated by food and driven to eat or ask for food throughout the day, which is known as ‘food approach’ behaviour.


Stone also asked mothers about the feeding practices that they used with their children – in particular about whether they used food to reward children for good behaviour, or visibly restricted their child’s access to foods, for example having foods in the house but forbidding them. These practices have been shown to make children more interested in food and have also been linked to greater emotional eating in children.


When Stone analysed the responses, she found that children who were very motivated by food were more likely to pick up emotional eating behaviour from their parents. Stone used a complex statistical method, known as moderated mediation analysis, to decipher how the different aspects of the relationship interacted: emotional eating in the mother, how she parented the child around food, the child’s food approach tendencies and emotional eating.


Professor Claire Farrow, who was one of Stone’s PhD supervisors at Aston University, said: “This study demonstrates that the way that children develop eating behaviours is very complex, and that emotional eating appears to be shaped in part by an innate drive towards food.

"In this study we found that parenting practices interact with children’s eating tendencies and that children who are the most driven to approach food are the most influenced by feeding practices that can lead to emotional eating. These findings suggest that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to child feeding isn’t always appropriate and that some children are more susceptible to the influence of behaviours that can lead to emotional eating.”


Stone agreed: “Our findings suggest that children who were more motivated to eat were more predisposed to associate food with emotions. Our research supports the idea that emotional eating is a learned behaviour which children often develop in pre-school years, but that some children are more vulnerable to developing emotional eating than others”


Although common amongst parents, the research also highlights that using food as a reward or visibly restricting the child’s access to certain foods - even in children as young as three – can be problematic. Giving a piece of chocolate as a reward or telling children they can only have one biscuit as a ‘treat’ is likely to create an emotional response in the child which they then connect to those foods.


Stone said: “The research suggests that restricting food in front of children who are already more motivated by food tends to backfire and makes children crave restricted foods even more. What seems to work best is known as ‘covert restriction’ - not letting children know that some foods are restricted (for example, not buying foods that you do not want your child to eat) and avoiding instances where you have to tell children that they are not allowed certain foods.”


The researchers suggest parents looking for practical advice on healthy eating and fussy eating should check out the Child Feeding Guide, a free online resource created by Professor Claire Farrow, Professor Emma Haycraft & Dr Gemma Witcomb at Aston and Loughborough Universities.



Connect with:
Dr Claire Farrow

Dr Claire Farrow

Professor and Director of Applied Health Research Group

Dr Farrow's interests concern the factors influencing eating behaviour and weight gain or loss, particularly in children.

Observational ResearchChild ObesityChild Eating BehaviourFussy EatingDigital Health Interventions

You might also like...

Check out some other posts from Aston University

3 min

Aston University research: Parents should encourage structure and independence around food to support children’s healthy eating

Dr Katie Edwards studied the feeding practices of parents of children with ‘avid’ eating traits, which can lead to obesity Focusing on health or deciding when it is time for a meal or snack helps parents to use supportive feeding practices. Supportive feeding practices could include involving children in decisions about food, or sitting together for mealtimes New research from Aston University has shone a light on the best ways for parents to encourage healthy eating in their children. The team of academics from Aston University’s School of Psychology, led by Professor Jacqueline Blissett, with Dr Katie Edwards as the lead researcher, looked at the meal- and snack-time practices of parents of children with ‘avid’ eating behaviours. ‘Avid’ eaters, who make up around 20% of children, particularly love food, are often hungry and will eat in response to food cues in the environment and their emotions, not just when they are hungry. They are the most susceptible to obesity and therefore encouraging a healthy, balanced diet is vital. Feeding children with avid eating behaviours can be challenging and the researchers wanted to understand how factors in everyday life, such as parent mood or eating situations, influence the feeding practices that parents use. Understanding this can help to create better support for families around meal and snack times and reduce the risk of children developing obesity. Dr Edwards says that the research shows that when parents prioritise children’s health or decide when it is time for a meal or snack, parents are more likely to use supportive feeding practices which create structure around meal or snack times or encourage children to be independent with their food choices. For example, parents could sit and eat with their children, choose what food is available for their children, or involve children in decisions about what food to eat. She adds that there are three main things that parents can do to help encourage healthy eating behaviour. The first is to focus on health, by providing nutritious and balanced meals. The second is to ensure a calm and positive atmosphere during eating occasions. The final recommendation is that parents should take the lead on setting meal- and snack-times, with a good structure being three meals and two snacks a day. These recommendations are linked to parents’ use of supportive feeding practices which are known to encourage children’s healthy eating. To carry out the research, the team recruited parents of children aged 3-5 with avid eating behaviour and asked them to download an app to their smartphones. The app sent four semi-random reminders per day for a 10-day period, asking them to complete a survey with information about mood and stress levels. Every time a child had a meal or a snack, or asked for food, parents completed another survey to give information about feeding practices (including those which give children structure, or independence, around food), mealtime goals (such as prioritising healthy eating), and information about the mealtime setting (such as the atmosphere). Previous research from this team at Aston University identified four main eating traits in children. As well as ‘avid’, the other traits, not studied here, are ‘typical’ eaters, who have no extreme behaviours, ‘avoidant’ eaters, who are extremely fussy, and ‘emotional’ eaters, who eat in response to emotions but do not necessarily enjoy food in the way that avid eaters do. Dr Edwards was also involved in the team’s research at Aston University that showed that parents’ eating behaviour influences that of their children. Dr Edwards said: “Given the challenges that parents may face and the risk of childhood obesity, we will use these findings to develop feeding support for families. Encouraging parents to use feeding practices which provide structure around meal and snack times, or promote children’s independence with food, could be helpful for supporting children’s healthy eating. Read the full paper in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-025-01768-x.

3 min

Aston University optometrist develops app with the best easy blinking exercises to improve dry eye symptoms

Dry eye disease is a common condition affecting one-third of the adult population and one-in-five children Professor James Wolffsohn researched the most effective blinking exercises to reduce discomfort, involving a close-squeeze-blink cycle He developed the MyDryEye app in collaboration with Alec Kingsnorth and Mark Nattriss to help sufferers An Aston University optometrist, Professor James Wolffsohn, has determined an optimum blinking exercise routine for people suffering with dry eye disease, and has developed a new app, MyDryEye, to help them complete the routine to ease their symptoms. Dry eye disease is a common condition which affects one-third of the adult population and one-in-five children, in which the eyes either do not make enough tears, or produce only poor-quality tears. It causes the eyes to become uncomfortable, with gritty- or itchy-feeling eyes, watery eyes and short-term blurred vision. It is more common in older adults and can be exacerbated by factors including dry air caused by air conditioning, dust, windy conditions, screen use and incomplete blinks, where the eye does not fully close. Professor Wolffsohn is head of Aston University’s School of Optometry and a specialist in dry eye disease. While it has long been known that blinking exercises can ease the symptoms of dry eye disease, the optimum technique, number of repetitions and necessary repeats per day are unclear. Professor Wolffsohn set out to determine the best exercises. His team found that the best technique for a dry eye blinking exercise is a close-squeeze-blink cycle, repeated 15 times, three times per day. Participants found that while they were doing their exercises symptom severity and frequency decreased, and the number of incomplete blinks decreased. Within two weeks of stopping the exercises, their symptoms returned to normal levels, showing the efficacy of the exercises. To carry out the work, Professor Wolffsohn’s team ran two studies. For the first, they recruited 98 participants, who were assessed for dry eye symptoms before and after the two weeks of blinking exercises. Participants were randomly allocated different blinking exercises to determine the most effective. A second study with 28 people measured the efficacy of the blinking exercise. Once the optimum blinking routine had been developed, Professor Wolffsohn worked withAlec Kingsnorth, an engineer and former Aston undergraduate and PhD student, and Mark Nattriss, business manager of his spin-out company, Wolffsohn Research Ltd, to develop the app, MyDryEye, which is freely available on Android and iOS operating systems. The app allows users to monitor their dry eye symptoms, assess their risk factors, add treatment reminders and monitor their compliance, complete the science-based blink exercises and find a specialist near them. Professor Wolffsohn says that the blinking exercises should be carried out as part of a treatment programme which could also include the use of lipid-based artificial tears, omega-3 supplements and warm compresses. Professor Wolffsohn said: “This research confirmed that blink exercises can be a way of overcoming the bad habit of only partially closing our eyes during a blink, that we develop when using digital devices. The research demonstrated that the most effective way to do the exercises is three times a day, 15 repeats of close, squeeze shut and reopen – just three minutes in total out of your busy lifestyle. To make it easier, we have made our MyDryEye app freely available on iOS and Android so you can choose when you want to be reminded to do the exercises and for this to map your progress and how it affects your symptoms.” Read the full paper, ‘Optimisation of Blinking Exercises for Dry Eye Disease’, in Contact Lens and Anterior Eye at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clae.2025.102453.

2 min

Aston University researchers to take the first steps to find out if AI can help policymakers make urban mobility more sustainable

Researchers to explore how AI can help urban mobility planners They are to investigate AI-driven policy tools’ potential to create greener cities Project to benefit from expertise of five European universities. A European group of researchers led by Aston University is taking the first steps to explore how AI can help urban mobility planners. As city populations grow causing strain on resources, the experts are to investigate AI-driven policy tools’ potential to create greener cities. The team have received £10,000 in funding from the British Academy which they hope will set them on the road to further research. Taking part in the project will be experts from University College London, Ruralis University in Norway, the University of Turin, Italy and Lisbon University Institute, Portugal. Dr Dalila Ribaudo from the Centre for Business Prosperity at Aston Business School and Dr Alina Patelli from the Aston Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Application will co-lead a UK-EU consortium consolidation project. The interdisciplinary project will benefit from expertise in applied business and specialist insight into global economics, policymaking and urban transport planning. Dr Patelli said “Policymakers and society could all benefit from our research into innovative ways of managing the strain on urban infrastructures and resources. "The AI-powered policy tools we are developing are meant to support decision managers at all levels of urban governance with reducing emissions, optimising transportation as well as predicting and preventing environmental hazards. Such changes would improve the quality of life for the millions of people living in towns and cities across the UK, Europe and, in the long term, the entire world.” Following the successful bid for the British Academy pump priming grant the team will apply for Horizon Europe funding to continue developing impactful AI-driven policy tools for greener cities.

View all posts
Powered by