Attachment, Feeling, and Feeding: Associations Between Caregivers' Attachment, Emotional and Feeding Responsiveness, and Children's Food Consumption

A substantial body of literature links attachment to childhood obesity. However, research on the mechanisms underlying this association is scarce. The present study aimed to test four serial indirect path models to examine whether caregivers' insecure attachment is related to children's food consumption, through its influence on emotional and feeding responsiveness. A total of 352 caregivers of preschool children reported on their attachment orientation, emotional responses to their children's distress, feeding practices, and their children's food consumption. Results showed that caregivers with higher levels of attachment avoidance and anxiety were more likely to use unsupportive emotional responses to children's distress, which predicted the increased use of unresponsive feeding practices, and consequently children's higher sugary and fatty/salty food consumption. Higher levels of attachment avoidance were also associated with children's lower fruit and vegetable consumption through lower use of supportive emotional responses and responsive feeding practices, while higher levels of attachment anxiety were associated with children's lower fruit and vegetable consumption only by lower use of responsive feeding practices. These findings suggest that the influence of insecure attachment on caregivers' emotion regulation may contribute to the use of specific feeding practices that, in turn, affect children's food intake and may have implications for obesity risk.