How did maternal mood and eating habits during COVID-19 affect child feeding practices?

Published

3 years ago

April 28, 2023

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By Dr. Liji Thomas, MD Apr 28 2023 Reviewed by Lily Ramsey, LLM

A recent study published in the Appetite Journal examined how maternal mood, body image, and eating concerns were related to perceived changes in feeding practices during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Study: Maternal mood, body image, and eating habits predict changes in feeding practices during the COVID-19 pandemic . Image Credit: Emituu/Shutterstock.com Background

With the onset of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many profound changes occurred in the normal lifestyle of people around the world.

This included business, workplace, school, sporting, and shopping activities. The feeding of children is another area that was impacted by pandemic-related changes to the mother's pattern of activity.

Using data from an online mothers' study, a recent study looked at how mood changes and the mother's body image were linked to changes in feeding practices during the COVID-19 pandemic. Introduction

Prior research shows that the way children are habitually fed is deeply influenced by the parent's eating habits and emotions associated with eating.

In particular, when parents eat for comfort or restrict their food intake despite feeling hungry, they practice eating patterns unlinked to their internal hunger or satiety signals. This, in turn, is associated with similar non-responsive child feeding patterns. Importantly, these are reflected with adverse impacts on the parent's and child's mental and physical health and the child's future eating habits.

Eating is a behavior designed to respond to hunger or satiety. The study explored three other types: emotional eating, in response to strong emotions; external eating, in response to food availability or other external cues; and restrained eating, where food intake is voluntarily reduced.

Body image is a powerful source of disordered eating behaviors in mothers. Maternal stress and negative moods may also trigger altered child-feeding practices. The pandemic was unquestionably associated with increased anxiety and stress among parents, with work-childcare conflicts being more likely to arise due to the shift of both workplace and education to the home. Related StoriesIs there an association between COVID-19 and the risk of developing an autoimmune disease?Vaccine component BNT162b4 enhances T-cell immunity against SARS-CoV-2 variants for reduced COVID-19 disease severityIs there an association between post COVID-19 syndrome and cognitive impairment?

In the current study, the scientists aimed to understand how these three factors – the mother's mood, body image, and eating habits, were linked to differences in child-feeding practices. These included non-responsive feedings, such as a behavioral reward, overt or covert restrictions, and meal structure.

The data came from an online questionnaire sent to 137 mothers. They were asked to describe their eating habits, mood, satisfaction with their body, and whether they had non-responsive feeding practices during the pandemic and during the pre-pandemic years. What did the study show?

The study's results indicated that non-responsive feeding practices partially differed during the pandemic.

Mothers used food to incentivize desirable behavior among children more often during this period. There was a decline in formal place-setting practices at the same time.

Mothers with greater self-reported stress, anxiety, and/or depression were less satisfied with their bodies. These mothers also were more likely to restrict food access by the child.

They were more prone to restrained eating as well as emotional eating. This was observed both before and during the pandemic. Anxiety was linked to greater use of reward eating during the pandemic but not before.

Body image dissatisfaction was linked to greater restrictions on the food accessible to the child before and during the pandemic. These mothers also showed more restrained eating and more emotional eating.

Mothers who tended to eat emotionally were more likely to show more non-responsive child-feeding behavior during and before the pandemic. Thus, they were more likely to use food as a reward for good behavior and to restrict food access by the child. The only behavior that did not change was the structured meal setting.

The impact of the pandemic was observed only in a greater incidence of using food to reward the child for eating among those mothers with greater depression, anxiety, and/or stress levels. Such mothers were also more likely to eat emotionally. What are the implications?

Despite the immense disruption caused by the pandemic, the observed effects on child feeding were restricted to increased laxity in meal settings and a greater tendency to reward children when they behaved as desired.

The latter was more common among mothers with anxiety, depression, and stress.

There was no relationship between maternal mood and meal setting, indicating that factors such as social distancing and other restrictions in place, along with their effect on the purchase, preparation, and timing of food for meals, were more important in this observed shift away from formal meals during the pandemic.

Poor body image did not appear to influence child-feeding practices, and mothers appeared to react in opposite ways to the lack of social interactions – with some eating more, while others reported poor appetite due to a negative mood.

In future periods with similar situations…

…resources to support mothers who are experiencing anxiety and distress should be available and include content targeting child feeding behaviors."

Further research on how the pandemic affected child feeding and eating over time is indicated. Moreover, these findings emphasize the need to monitor and support mental health during such periods. Journal reference:

Rodgers, R., Sereno, I. and Zimmerman, E. (2023) "Maternal mood, body image, and eating habits predict changes in feeding practices during the COVID-19 pandemic", Appetite, p. 106576. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2023.106576. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195666323001290.

Politics

Foreign Office has been hacked – ministers ‘fairly confident’ individual data not at risk

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Foreign Office has been hacked - ministers 'fairly confident' individual data not at risk

Foreign Office data has been compromised by hackers, a minister has confirmed to Sky News, but he said the government is “fairly confident” that no individual data has been accessed.

Trade minister Sir Chris Bryant told Sky’s Mornings with Jones and Melbourne that the government first became aware of the hack in October, and was now “on top of it”.

Sky News understands that the data stolen was on systems operated on the Home Office’s behalf by the Foreign Office, which detected the breach.

The Sun reported last night that a Chinese groups of hackers known as Storm 1949 targeted Foreign Office servers and had accessed information relating to visa details, with “thousands” of confidential documents and data stolen.

But the minister told Sky News that it is “not entirely clear” who is responsible for the hack, and he could share “remarkably little detail”.

The Conservatives are accusing ministers of failing to protect the UK from Chinese interference.

Sir Chris said: “There certainly has been a hack at the FCDO [Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office], and we’ve been aware of that since October.”

Pointing to high-profile hacks this year of Marks and Spencer, Jaguar Land Rover, and the British Library, the minister added: “All of these are really important things for us to tackle and be aware of and prevent wherever possible.

“Some of the reporting has, I think, been a bit more speculation than accurate.”

He said he could share “remarkably little” in the way of facts about the hack because “quite often the investigation takes quite a long time”.

“We managed to close the hole, as it were, very quickly,” Sir Chris said.

“It was a technical issue in one of our sites, I gather. And we’re fairly confident that there’s a low risk of any individual actually being affected by this.

“I know that some of the reports have said, potentially, various things could happen. I think that that’s a bit more speculation than is helpful. So I don’t want to scaremonger about this. We are on top of it.

“And also it’s not entirely clear where this has come from. I know everybody’s speculating about that as well. That is not entirely clear either.”

Conservative shadow foreign secretary Dame Priti Patel shared a report that said the hack was Chinese and wrote on X: “China undermines our security, institutions and democracy but Labour is failing to protect Britain from China’s foreign interference in our country.

“[Sir Keir] Starmer kowtows to China at every opportunity and cannot be trusted to protect our national interest.”

Politics

Too late to investigate Farage election expenses, Essex Police say

Published

3 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Too late to investigate Farage election expenses, Essex Police say

It is too late to investigate whether Nigel Farage broke election law on spending at the general election, Essex Police has said.

The Reform UK leader had been referred to the police following claims by a former member of his campaign team that the campaign to get Mr Farage elected in Clacton last year overspent.

There are tight rules on campaign spending in the UK, including separating what is spent as part of a national campaign and what is spent directly in a constituency.

However, there is a one-year statutory time limit to begin any investigation, which Essex Police said has now elapsed.

The force said: “We have assessed a report relating to an allegation around misreported expenditure by a political candidate in connection with the general election in July 2024.

“Having regard to the Representation of the People Act 1983, which states any prosecution for such an offence must commence within one year, it has been concluded that this report falls outside of the stated statutory time limit, and no investigation can take place.”

The allegations of overspending on Mr Farage’s campaign were first reported at the start of last week, with Richard Everett – also a former Reform councillor – claiming he had passed information to the Metropolitan Police.

Reform was quick to deny the allegations, and accused Mr Everett of being a “disgruntled former councillor” who was expelled from the party “several months ago”.

The overspending reportedly included failing to declare spending on leaflets, banners, utility bills and the refurbishment of a bar in its Clacton campaign office – although Mr Everett said Mr Farage was “blissfully unaware” as others managed the finances.

Labour Party chair Anna Turley had also written to the Electoral Commission about the claims.

Responding yesterday, the elections watchdog said: “We have responded to Anna Turley MP’s correspondence, which raised questions about Reform UK’s spending at the 2024 general election.

“After carefully considering the information presented in the letter, we did not identify any expenditure relating to Mr Farage’s election campaign in Clacton that should have been declared in Reform UK’s national expenditure.”

Politics

Fidelity macro lead calls $65K Bitcoin bottom in 2026, end of bull cycle

Published

4 hours ago

December 19, 2025

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Fidelity macro lead calls K Bitcoin bottom in 2026, end of bull cycle

Bitcoin may have ended its historical four-year cycle, signaling an incoming year of downside, despite widespread analyst expectations for an extended cycle driven by regulatory tailwinds.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) $125,000 all-time high on Oct. 6 may have signaled the top of the current four-year Bitcoin halving cycle, both in terms of “price and time,” according to Jurrien Timmer, the director of global macroeconomic research at asset management firm Fidelity.

“While I remain a secular bull on Bitcoin, my concern is that Bitcoin may well have ended another 4-year cycle halving phase,” wrote Timmer in a Thursday X post. “Bitcoin winters have lasted about a year, so my sense is that 2026 could be a “year off” (or “off year”) for Bitcoin. Support is at $65-75k.”

Crypto market may see more upside on fundamental, regulatory tailwinds

Timmer’s analysis contradicts other crypto analysts, who expect the growing number of regulated crypto investment products to lead to an extended bull market cycle in 2026.

Notably, Tom Shaughnessy, the co-founder of crypto research firm Delphi Digital, expects new all-time highs for Bitcoin in 2026, after investor sentiment recovers from the record $19 billion crypto market crash that occurred at the beginning of October.

“We are working through a one-time disastrous 10/10 liquidation event that broke the market,” wrote Shaughnessy in a Friday X post, adding:

“Once that’s worked through, we hit $BTC ATHs in 2026 as prices rubber band to reflect the progress outside 10/10.”

Shaughnessy said crypto market valuations will be driven by the industry’s “fundamental progress,” including growing Wall Street implementations and regulatory developments.

Policy experts are also predicting a significant year of progress on US cryptocurrency legislation, a development that may bring more institutional investment to the crypto space.

“I do expect 2026 to be another meaningful year for crypto regulation, but it will look different from the last one,” Cathy Yoon, general counsel at crypto research firm Temporal and Solana block-building system Harmonic, told Cointelegraph.

“With stablecoin legislation now passed, the real impact will come from implementation – examinations, disclosures, and how these assets integrate into payments and financial infrastructure,” she said.

However, investors’ social sentiment took a significant hit earlier this week as Bitcoin dipped below $85,000. Bearish commentary has since dominated social media platforms, including X, Reddit and Telegram, according to market intelligence platform Santiment.

Meanwhile, the crypto industry’s best-performing traders by returns, who are tracked as “smart money” traders on Nansen’s blockchain intelligence platform, are also betting on a short-term decline for most leading cryptocurrencies.

*Smart money traders top perpetual futures positions on Hyperliquid. Source: Nansen*

While smart money traders were net short on Bitcoin for $123 million, the same cohort was betting on Ether’s (ETH) price increase, with $475 million worth of cumulative net long positions, Nansen data shows.

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