Preschoolers eat healthy when parents set rules about food, study finds

University of Buffalo, New York
By Ellen Goldbaum
Nov. 7, 2014

Preschoolers whose parents have rules about what their children can and cannot eat have healthier eating habits than those raised without such rules, according to a new study by pediatrics researchers at the University at Buffalo.

The study also provides new information on how toddlers’ ability to self-regulate, or control, their emotional and behavioral impulses influences their eating habits two years later, depending on the presence or absence of parental food rules.

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“Parents can make a difference here by training young children to self-regulate and also by setting food rules in the home,” says Xiaozhong Wen, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and senior author on the research. “We found that the combination of parental rules and young children’s ability to self-regulate their behaviors works best in teaching young children to eat healthy.”

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“We found that children who were able to self-regulate at 2 years old had healthy eating habits by the time they were 4 years old, so long as their parents also set rules about the right types of foods to eat,” he says. “We found that self-regulation by itself, without parental food rules, made little difference in childrens’ later eating habits.”

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Among the unhealthy food items, soda was the one that children consumed most if their parents had no food rules.

“We found that preschoolers whose parents had no food rules drink soda about 25 percent more than children whose parents had food rules,” explains Wen. “We found that soda is pretty attractive to preschoolers, but soda cannot kill their hunger. It doesn’t fill them up.” This finding provides some insight he says, into how young children with no parental food rules begin early consumption of unhealthy foods.

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