Health Matters
An enthusiastic response to food in early childhood may be linked to a higher likelihood of experiencing eating disorder symptoms in adolescence, according to a new study led by researchers at UCL and Erasmus University Rotterdam.
The study looked at survey data from 3,670 young people in the UK and the Netherlands to investigate how appetite traits in early childhood might relate to the likelihood of developing eating disorder symptoms up to 10 years later.
The researchers found that a particularly high food responsiveness, defined as the urge to eat when you see, smell or taste palatable food, at the ages of four and five was linked to a higher likelihood of reporting a range of eating disorder symptoms at ages 12 to 14.
The team also found that a slower pace of eating and feeling full more quickly (high sensitivity to satiety) in early childhood may be protective against developing some eating disorder symptoms later.
Co-lead author Dr Ivonne Derks (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) said: “Although our study cannot prove causality, our findings suggest food cue responsiveness may be one predisposing risk factor for the onset of eating disorder symptoms in adolescence.
“However, high responsiveness to food is also a normal and very common behaviour and should be seen as just one potential risk factor among many rather than something to cause parents worry.”
Higher food responsiveness was linked to a 16% to 47% increase in the odds of reporting eating disorder symptoms, including binge eating symptoms, uncontrolled eating, emotional eating, restrained eating and compensatory behaviours.
The 47% increase was found for binge eating symptoms (eating a very large amount of food and/or experiencing the feeling of loss of control over eating), meaning that adolescents whose parents rated them highest on food responsiveness were almost three times more likely to report binge eating symptoms compared to adolescents whose parents scored them lowest.
A 16% increase in odds was found for restrained eating, whereby a person restricts their intake of food to lose weight or avoid weight gain.
Just like food responsiveness, emotional overeating in early childhood was also linked with higher odds of engaging in compensatory behaviours, which are intended to avoid weight gain, such as skipping meals, fasting and excessive exercise.
In turn, some appetite traits seemed to be protective against developing eating disorder symptoms later. Higher satiety responsiveness — that is, feeling full more quickly after eating, and feeling full for longer — was linked to lower odds of uncontrolled eating (defined as the extent to which someone feels out of control and eats more than usual) and compensatory behaviours.
A slower pace of eating, meanwhile, was linked to lower odds of compensatory behaviours and restrained eating.
The researchers also found that appetite traits such as food fussiness, emotional undereating (eating less due to low mood), and enjoyment of food in early childhood were not linked to later eating disorder symptoms in adolescence.
