Arcangelo Uccula, Gianfranco Nuvoli, Elia Aiello
Parental attributions and attachment styles in children's eating behaviour
Abstract
Informations and abstract
Keywords: attachment, parental-child agreement, children's eating behaviour, parental representation, disorganized attachment.
The aim of this study was to investigate the parent-child concordance in children's eating behaviour. The sample was composed by 204 children (both genders), aged between 5 and 11 years, and their parents. Agreement/disagreement of perspectives was assessed in relation to attachment styles of children. Attachment style was measured using the modified version (Attili, 2001) of SAT (Klagsbrun and Bowlby, 1976); eating behavior was investigated by showing pictures to children and administering a questionnaire to their parents. Results showed higher level of coherence in parent-child descriptions in secure children compared to insecure ones. Disorganized children attachment showed a lower level of concordance. Research results, performed on a non-clinic sample, about a potentially risky behaviour as that of food intake, have pointed out that significant differences in sharing eating behaviour descriptions are attachment correlated.
