Peer-reviewed article
The relationship between parental feeding practices and children's health-related quality of life.
Juton C, Torres S, Valdés-Querol G, Rajmil L, Fito M et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how parental feeding practices affect children's quality of life in 1,535 children aged 3-11 years in Catalonia. Restrictive feeding and pressure-to-eat practices were associated with lower quality of life, while monitoring showed benefits only at the highest levels. The findings suggest parental feeding behaviors influence children's wellbeing, though the direction of cause and effect remains unclear.
Key points
- Restrictive feeding practices were significantly associated with lower health-related quality of life in children
- Pressure-to-eat feeding practices were associated with lower quality of life
- Monitoring showed a non-linear relationship, with higher quality of life only at the highest levels of monitoring
- Effects remained significant after adjusting for child age, gender, BMI, diet adherence, physical activity and parental education
- Study was limited by reliance on single parent reporter for both feeding practices and child quality of life
Limitations
The study relied on cross-sectional data from a single informant (parent), making it impossible to determine whether feeding practices cause poor quality of life or vice versa. The findings may not generalize beyond the studied population in Catalonia.
Abstract
Background Healthy eating is essential throughout childhood and adolescence, and has been associated with better health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Healthy eating results from complex interactions, including the transmission of eating habits within families. Although parental feeding practices may influence children's HRQoL through several plausible behavioral pathways, empirical evidence examining this association remains limited. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the association between parental feeding practices-monitoring, pressure-to-eat, and restriction-and children's HRQoL. Methods This cross-sectional study included 1,535 children (819 boys and 716 girls) aged 3 to 11 years recruited from 19 schools in Catalonia between 2022 and 2024. Parental feeding practices and children's HRQoL were assessed by the same parent using the Child Feeding Questionnaire and the KIDSCREEN-10 parent-proxy instrument, respectively. Results Restrictive and pressure-to-eat feeding practices were associated with lower HRQoL in children (p < 0.001 and p = 0.03, respectively), whereas monitoring showed a significant non-linear association with HRQoL (p < 0.001), with higher HRQoL observed only at the highest levels of monitoring, after adjustment for children's age, gender, body mass index, adherence to the Mediterranean diet, physical activity level and parental education level. Conclusion Based on reports of both parental feeding practices and children's HRQoL provided by the same parent, our findings were broadly consistent with our hypothesis; however, future longitudinal studies incorporating multiple informants are needed to clarify the directionality of these associations and minimize potential reporting bias.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Parental feeding practices (monitoring, restriction, pressure-to-eat)
- Population
- 1,535 children (819 boys, 716 girls) aged 3-11 years from 19 schools in Catalonia
Key finding
Restrictive feeding practices associated with significantly lower HRQoL (p < 0.001)
C et al. · Europe PMC · 3 Sept 2026