Parental restrictive feeding with Latinx adolescents: Examining the role of adolescent effortful control.

ABSTRACT

The objective of this study was to test if youth effortful control, a general process of self-regulation that is rooted in temperament, uniquely predicts maternal restrictive feeding with Latinx adolescents above and beyond demographic/contextual factors, prior use of restrictive feeding, and common markers of obesity-proneness. The study sample consisted of Latinx fifth and sixth graders and their mothers residing in the Midwestern U.S. (N =  97 dyads). Effortful control, maternal restrictive feeding, demographic/contextual factors, and markers of obesity proneness were measured across two waves of data collection approximately one year apart. Results demonstrated an inverse relation between effortful control and maternal restrictive feeding after controlling for Time 1 demographic/contextual factors, maternal BMI, maternal restrictive feeding, youth BMI z-score, and perceived youth weight. Future directions include testing for the presence of an ironic feedback process such that Latinx mothers' attempts to overcome deficits in their children's self-regulation skills through restrictive feeding may be inadvertently maintaining the problem.