Premium
Emotional feeding as interpersonal emotion regulation: A developmental risk factor for binge‐eating behaviors
Author(s) -
Christensen Kara A.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
international journal of eating disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.785
H-Index - 138
eISSN - 1098-108X
pISSN - 0276-3478
DOI - 10.1002/eat.23044
Subject(s) - psychology , binge eating , emotional eating , developmental psychology , dyad , interpersonal communication , expressed emotion , eating disorders , interpersonal relationship , emotional expression , construct (python library) , clinical psychology , social psychology , eating behavior , obesity , medicine , computer science , programming language
Emotional feeding is an interpersonal emotion regulation strategy wherein people provide food to others as a means of influencing the recipient's emotional response. Parental emotional feeding has been linked to higher levels of emotional eating in children and adolescents using cross‐sectional, retrospective, and prospective designs; however, there is little research on emotional feeding as a developmental risk factor for emotional eating and binge‐eating behaviors in adolescence and adulthood. This Idea Worth Researching article explores the rationale for studying emotional feeding as a lifespan construct and its potential implications for understanding eating disorder pathology. Specifically, it offers suggestions for examining emotional feeding as a predictor of emotional eating and binge‐eating behavior across the lifespan, assessing potential intergenerational transmission pathways, and researching similarities in feeding styles and emotional eating across a variety of relationships beyond the parent–child dyad.