Highlights • Boredom was induced in 4- to 5-year-old children using a novel laboratory paradigm. • Children ate more kilocalories when bored compared to a control condition. • Unresponsive eating and negative affect interact to predict boredom from emotional eating. |
A new study carried out at Aston University has shown that children as young as four eat 79% more calories when they are bored, compared to when they are in a neutral mood.
Although boredom is a common emotion experienced by many children, no research to date has experimentally looked at how much more children eat when they are bored. On average, the study shows that children who felt bored ate 95 kcal when they were already full, compared to children in a neutral mood who ate only 59 kcal. The pioneering research was led by Dr Rebecca Stone as part of her PhD, supervised by Professor Claire Farrow and Professor Jackie Blissett from Aston University, and Professor Emma Haycraft from Loughborough University.
Children’s eating behavior is determined by their genetics, temperament, and a variety of other factors, including the eating practices they experience. In previous research, the authors explored the behaviors that make children more likely to eat when experiencing negative emotions. Often, when children experience negative emotions such as boredom or sadness, adults use food to calm them down. However, this behavior, known as emotional eating , appears to increase the likelihood that children will eat more when they are upset, potentially teaching them to reach for food when their mood is low.
As part of the study, researchers asked parents about the feeding practices they used with their children and about their children’s temperament. The children and parents were given a standard meal which they ate to their fill. The children then participated in a series of everyday conditions in which their mood was assessed, and one of these conditions was boring for the children. The researchers found that if parents reported using foods to calm their children’s emotions frequently and their children were highly emotional, the children ate five times more kilocalories when they were feeling bored (104 kcal) compared to when they were in a neutral mood. (21 kcal).
Clustered bar graph illustrating post hoc analysis to compare the mean amount of kilocalories consumed by mood condition. ** p = .012, * p = .024. Error bars show 95% confidence interval.
If children consume many more calories during a moment of induced boredom in a laboratory (a four-minute period), given that boredom is an emotion that children commonly experience, the possibility of excessive calorie consumption in response to boredom during a day, a week or a year, is potentially very significant in a food-abundant environment."
Previous studies on what can influence children’s eating behavior tended to be based on questionnaires, grouping together all negative moods, including sadness, anger and anxiety. Boredom is easily identified and generally easily rectified, so helping parents deal with children’s boredom without using food would be a potentially useful way to reduce less healthy snacking.
Dr. Stone emphasizes that the experience of boredom is important in the development of children’s sense of identity and creativity, so he does not recommend that children can or should avoid being bored. Instead, it suggests that children need to learn to experience boredom without turning to food, and that parents could try to divert their children’s attention away from food when they feel bored, or restructure the home food environment to children are less likely to turn to food. when they are bored.
Professor Farrow said: "It is commonly assumed that children tend to turn to food when they are bored and that some children are more likely to do this than others. This is the first study to test this experimentally in the laboratory. Although there appears to be There are individual differences among children in terms of eating when bored, it is useful to know that the feeding practices that adults use around food can determine the likelihood of this happening.
Although it’s tempting to use food as a tool to comfort children, research suggests that emotional eating could lead to more emotional eating in the future. "It is important that parents and caregivers are aware that this short-term solution could create future challenges."
The research team is interested in exploring other negative mood states in children and developing advice and support for families to find effective ways to manage challenges related to children’s eating behaviour.
Source: Stone, RA, et al. (2023). Emotional eating following a laboratory mood induction: The interaction between parental feeding practices and child temperament. Food Quality and Preference . doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2023.105008 .
