Parenting quality in infancy and emotional eating in adolescence: Mediation through emotion suppression and alexithymia

Abstract

This study assessed the association between parenting quality at age 15 and 28 months and emotional eating (EE) at age 12 and 16 years through serial mediation by suppression of emotions and alexithymia at 12 years. The sample included 129 children and their parents. Lower parental quality in infancy was related to more suppression of emotions, which in turn was related to more difficulty identifying emotions, and in turn to higher EE in adolescence. This serial mediation model was significant for EE at 12 years, and for EE at 16 years. If future studies reveal converging findings, this knowledge points to the need for programs preventing the development of EE in adolescence through increasing the quality of parenting in infancy.