Maternal Attentional Control Moderates the Association Between Increased Depression and Controlling Feeding Practices During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Parental distress is associated with less healthful child feeding practices. In this preliminary study, we examined how changes in distress from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with similar changes in feeding practices in a sample of mothers of preschool-aged children. In addition, we examined how pre-pandemic laboratory measures of maternal self-regulation moderated this association. A total of 36 mothers from an ongoing study on parent and child self-regulation completed surveys assessing parental distress (i.e., maternal depression, parenting stress) and child feeding practices during pandemic-related stay-at-home orders in May-June 2020. These mothers had completed the same measures approximately 2 years earlier, along with laboratory assessments of inhibitory and attentional control. Pre-pandemic laboratory measures of attentional control significantly moderated the association between increased maternal depression and use of controlling feeding practices, such that mothers with better attentional, but not inhibitory, control scores did not show an effect of increased depression on feeding practices. These results provide preliminary evidence that acute increases in parental distress associated with "stay-at-home" orders affect feeding practices, specifically for mothers with lower levels of attentional control abilities.