Emotional Feeding Model (EFM) in Early Childhood to Prevent Obesity, Eating Disorders, Child Neglect and Abuse

The increasing prevalence of childhood obesity in the world leads to more and more health problems throughout life.

“Interventions to prevent childhood obesity by changing dietary, physical activity and sedentary behaviors have not proved to be very effective, and did not significantly improve BMI" (Anderson, 2010)

"There is increasing evidence linking the stress response to obesity and the metabolic syndrome…. A novel approach to preventing obesity is to help children develop healthy emotion regulation, controlling their physiologic and behavioral responses to emotions that arise from psychological stress” (Anderson, 2011)

The Emotional Feeding Model (EFM) is suggested as a novel approach to nurture the emotional well-being in early childhood and to prevent obesity and its outcomes, eating disorders, child neglect and abuse.

Feeding and family mealtime`s experiences in early childhood nurture the emotional, social, as well as cognitive and motor development. The common daily situation of feeding and mealtimes serve as learning and training laboratory, where parent-child relationships are experienced and shaped. Positive transactions and experiences during feeding, like:

• listening and responding appropriately to the baby’s hunger and satiation signals
• placing full trust in his ability to adjust the amount of food he needs
• respecting and encouraging his initiatives and experiences to feed himself

Create the basic elements for building positive well-being, emotionally and socially.

When caregivers feed the child mechanically or force feed him, it creates the toxic stress and unhealthy environment that might damage his brain development. This has far-reaching effects of his psychological, social and physical development.

It is of great significance and in our responsibility to guide and train young parents, as well as professionals working with young children, in how to create an environment that nurtures the emotional well-being and prevents the toxic stress and its damaging outcomes.