Study Sheds Light on Regulating Children's Appetite Through Biopsychosocial Pathways Model - Video

The foundation for healthy eating behavior starts in infancy. Young children learn to regulate their appetite through a combination of biological, psychological, and sociological factors. In a new paper, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign propose a model that explores these factors and their interactions, providing guidelines for better understanding childhood appetite self-regulation.

“When we talk about obesity, the common advice is often to just eat less and exercise more. That’s a simplistic recommendation, which almost makes it seem like an individual's willpower solely determines their approach to food,” said lead author Sehyun Ju, a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

Ju and her colleagues provide a comprehensive framework based on the biopsychosocial pathways model, which outlines three interacting categories: Biological factors, including sensory experience, physiological hunger and satiety signals, brain-gut interaction, and the influence of the gut microbiome; psychological factors, including emotional self-regulation, cognitive control, stress regulation, and reward processing; and social factors, such as parental behavior and feeding practices, culture, geographic location, and food insecurity.

The researchers combine this framework with temperamental theory to explore how the pathways are modified by individual temperament.

Children react differently to stimuli based on their psychological and emotional make up, Ju explained. The model also takes children’s developmental stages into account. Infants have basic appetite regulation based on physiological cues. They gradually become more susceptible to external influences and by age 3-5 children begin to exhibit greater self-control and emotional regulation.

“By analyzing the pathways outlined in our model, we can better understand the combined influences of multiple factors on children's appetite self-regulation and their motivations to approach food,” Ju said. “For example, the presence of palatable food may not generate similar responses in everyone. Children could approach food as a reward, for pleasure-seeking, or to regulate emotions. The underlying motivations can be diverse, and they are influenced by external factors as well as temperamental characteristics.”

Socio-environmental influences include parent-child interactions around food, as well as non-food-related caregiver practices that can impact the child’s emotional regulation. The household food environment, cultural value of food intake, and food availability are also important factors, the researchers stated.

Scientists can use the model to guide their research, focusing on specific pathways based on their topic of interest.

Reference: Sehyun Ju, Brent A. McBride, Merin Oleschuk, Kelly K. Bost, Biopsychosocial pathways model of early childhood appetite self-regulation: Temperament as a key to modulation of interactions among systems, Social Science & Medicine, Volume 360, 2024, 117338, ISSN 0277-9536, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117338.