1. Relationships between Temperament and eating Behaviours in young Children
Sari Bornstein

2. Background:
Children’s eating behavior is an important priority given the prevalence of childhood obesity
Differences in child temperament may be a reason why certain children have better relationship with food than others
Overweight vs. underweight
Feeding problems
FOOD APPROACH eating behaviors: food responsiveness, emotional over- eating, enjoyment of food, desire to drink
FOOD AVOIDANT eating behaviors: satiety responsiveness, slowness in eating, emotional under-eating and food fussiness

3. Purpose:
To examine associations between young children’s temperament and a range of typical eating behaviors, and
To examine the association between children’s BMI, eating behavior and temperament

4. Hypothesis:
Children that report having a more difficult temperament would have more food avoidance and less food approach eating behaviors, and
Children having a higher BMI would have higher levels of food approach eating behaviors and more emotional temperament

5. Participants: Included 241 mothers of children aged 3-8 years
Excluded from the study if:
Missing information
Father/male caregiver
Information on the mothers:
Mean age of mothers: 36 Y.O. (SD 5.72)
Mean BMI of mothers: 24 (SD 4.17) *generally healthy weight*
Mean education level after 16 Y.O: 4 years (SD 2.82)
Information on the children:
55% male, 45% female
Mean age: 5 Y.O.
25% underweight, 51% normal weight, 24% overweight/obese
White, middle class neighborhoods

6. Methods: Children’s Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ)
Distributed to nurseries/schools for the parent to fill out, along with background information of the mother and child
35 item questionnaire on 4 food approach eating behaviors: food responsiveness, emotional over-eating, enjoyment of food, desire to drink, and 4 food avoidant eating behaviors: satiety responsiveness, slowness of eating, emotional under-eating, food fussiness
Based on a 5-point Likert scale (never to always)
Mean scores were calculated
EAS Temperament Survey
20 statements assessing 4 dimensions of children’s temperament: shyness, emotionality, sociability & activity
Based on a 5-point Likert scale. Higher scores indicated the trait being more typical
T-tests used to analyze data
Examined differences in child age and gender
Girls more emotional than boys & boys more active than girls

7. Data:
Table 1. Descriptive statistics for the whole sample of children on subscales of the Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire and EAS Temperament Survey. Children (N = 241) Mean (SD) Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire Food responsiveness 2.20 (0.64) Emotional over-eating 1.72 (0.59) Enjoyment of food 3.86 (0.68) Desire to drink 2.52 (0.96) Satiety responsiveness 2.94 (0.64) Slowness in eating 2.92 (0.83) Emotional under-eating 2.76 (0.90) Food fussiness 2.70 (0.81) EAS Temperament Survey Shyness 2.62 (0.81) Emotionality 2.57 (0.94) Sociability 3.57 (0.65) Activity 4.17 (0.71)

8. Results: Shyness Emotionality Sociability Activity BMI FOOD APPROACH X
Food responsiveness X
Emotional over-eating
Enjoyment of food
Desire to drink
FOOD AVOIDANT
Satiety responsiveness
Slowness in eating
Emotional under-eating
Food fussiness
X indicates a positive correlation
X indicates a negative correlation

9. Summary: The data found supported the claims that:
Children with more difficult temperaments would have more food avoidant eating behaviors.
Children with higher BMI would have greater food approach eating behaviors.
No evidence was found which related children’s BMI to emotional temperament.
Emotionality was the only temperament trait that correlated with children’s eating behaviors

10. Conclusion:
Emotional children are more subjected to emotional under- or over- eating
Early temperament is likely to be associated with later eating problems
Limitations include: reliance on parental reporting, examination of only 4 temperament traits and absence of objective height & weight measurements
Feeding practices that parents use with their children is a relative factor in this study, but wasn’t included
Further work is needed to explore the findings