Raising happy eaters: Unlocking the secrets of childhood appetite

URBANA, Ill. – The foundation for healthy eating behavior starts in infancy. Young children learn to regulate their appetite through a combination of biological, psychological, and sociological factors. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign propose a model that explores these factors and their interactions, providing guidelines for better understanding childhood appetite self-regulation.

“When we talk about obesity, the common advice is often to just eat less and exercise more. That’s a simplistic recommendation, which almost makes it seem like an individual's willpower solely determines their approach to food,” said lead author Sehyun Ju, a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois. 

Appetite self-regulation is related to general self-regulation, but it specifically concerns an individual’s ability to regulate food intake, which affects healthy development and obesity risk. Children are born with a capacity to regulate appetite based on hunger and satiety signals, but with increased exposure to environmental factors, their eating is increasingly guided by psychological reasoning and motivations. Therefore, it is important to take a developmental perspective to trace changes in eating behaviors over time, Ju stated.

Ju and her colleagues provide a comprehensive framework based on the biopsychosocial pathways model, which outlines three interacting categories: Biological factors, including sensory experience, physiological hunger and satiety signals, brain-gut interaction, and the influence of the gut microbiome; psychological factors, including emotional self-regulation, cognitive control, stress regulation, and reward processing; and social factors, such as parental behavior and feeding practices, culture, geographic location, and food insecurity.

The researchers combine this framework with temperamental theory to explore how the pathways are modified by individual temperament.

Children react differently to stimuli based on their psychological and emotional make up, Ju explained. For example, openness to novelty and positive anticipation can affect whether a child is willing to try new foods. If a parent pressures their child to eat, it could be counter-productive for a child with heightened sensitivity to negative affect, causing the child to consume less.

The model also takes children’s developmental stages into account. Infants have basic appetite regulation based on physiological cues. They gradually become more susceptible to external influences and by age 3-5 children begin to exhibit greater self-control and emotional regulation.

“By analyzing the pathways outlined in our model, we can better understand the combined influences of multiple factors on children's appetite self-regulation and their motivations to approach food,” Ju said. “For example, the presence of palatable food may not generate similar responses in everyone. Children could approach food as a reward, for pleasure-seeking, or to regulate emotions. The underlying motivations can be diverse, and they are influenced by external factors as well as temperamental characteristics.”

Socio-environmental influences include parent-child interactions around food, as well as non-food-related caregiver practices that can impact the child’s emotional regulation. The household food environment, cultural value of food intake, and food availability are also important factors, the researchers stated.

Scientists can use the model to guide their research, focusing on specific pathways based on their topic of interest.

For example, Ju and co-author Kelly Bost, professor of child development in HDFS, are conducting an empirical study investigating parent-child interactions during mealtime. Parents filled out questionnaires, and family mealtimes were videotaped, so the researchers could gauge the dyadic interaction between child and caregiver. The research team then looked at the children’s approach or withdrawal towards food and evaluated how temperament modulated those associations.

“If we understand the differential susceptibility to various factors, we can identify and modify the environmental influences that are particularly obesogenic based on children's temperamental characteristics. Then we will be able to provide more refined approaches to support children's healthy eating behavior,” Ju explained.

“Or, if children experience food insecurity, they might demonstrate certain reward responses towards food stimuli. Even if food insecurity is alleviated, we may still need to help children build a secure, positive relationship with food that is not stress-induced or that does not use food as a primary means to fulfill their emotional needs. If we understand the pathways, we could tailor our approaches to support children by addressing all these factors,” she concluded.

The study was part of the STRONG Kids 2 project, which investigates how individual biology interacts with the family environment to promote healthy eating habits in young children.

The paper, “Biopsychosocial pathways model of early childhood appetite self-regulation: Temperament as a key to modulation of interactions among systems,” is published in Social Science & Medicine [DOI:10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117338]. Authors include Sehyun Ju, Brent McBride, Merin Oleschuk, and Kelly Bost.