"It Scars": Meaning Making and Psychological Impacts of Parental Feeding Control

Date
2017
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Abstract
Given the negative physiological and psychosocial outcomes associated with childhood obesity, it is no wonder that parents may want to utilize parental feeding control practices in order to promote weight loss, or prevent weight gain, in their children. However, regardless of parents’ best intentions, parental feeding control practices have been found to have counterproductive effects on children’s eating behaviours and weight status. Despite these findings, minimal research has been conducted to examine how these parental feeding control practices are subjectively experienced by children. As such, the current study explored perceived meaning making and psychological impacts of parental feeding control practices through constructivist grounded theory methods. Results from the preliminary constructivist grounded theory indicate that individuals face lasting negative meaning making (e.g., viewing self-worth as contingent on weight), psychological (e.g., fearing weight gain), and behavioural (e.g., engaging in maladaptive eating behaviours) impacts as a result of experiencing parental feeding control practices during their childhoods. Findings have implications for counselling and future research.
Description
Keywords
Educational Psychology
Citation
Brun, I. (2017). "It Scars": Meaning Making and Psychological Impacts of Parental Feeding Control (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26687