Calming Your Kids With Food Can Have Long-Term Effects

Researchers warn against calming upset children with food, as this practice can cause a maturing child to develop unhealthy eating patterns. Put simply, parents who are “emotional feeders” tend to raise “emotional eaters.”
Researches in Norway conducted a study involving 800 four-year-old children—checking in on them again when they were six, eight and 10. The results of the study showed kids offered food for comfort at ages four and six displayed more emotional eating at ages eight and ten.
Researchers also found that parents who know that food calms their children will feed them comfort foods for that reason.
“Emotional feeding increases emotional eating and vice versa,” said Silje Steinsbekk, associate professor of psychology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim who was the study’s lead author.”