Diet and Psychosocial (Child and Adolescent)

Although evidence of mother-child similarities in dietary behavior has been identified so far mostly using cross-sectional design, this study delivers a longitudinal look into the association - firstly examining whether maternal snacking can predict changes in the adolescents’ snacking over time and secondly, inspecting the relevance of the adolescents’ television viewing time to the strength of the mother-child snacking association. The hypothesis was that television viewing may increase the urge to snack what the mother ate later on, through food advertisement exposure and mindless eating for example. 2051 adolescents (Mage baseline = 13.81; 51.5% boys) were asked to report on their snacking and television viewing three times, with intervals of one year, and in addition the 1080 mothers reported on their snacking at baseline. The results indicated that maternal snacking predicted the adolescents’ snacking over time, with this observed effect more pronounced among the adolescents who watch a lot of television. The importance of mothers in forming adolescents’ prospective snacking is highlighted by this study, as well as the relevance of assessing home environmental factors that may influence maternal effects on their children’s snacking.