Learning Objectives

After completion of this module students will be able to:

• Consider emotional regulation and ties to pediatric obesity.
• Analyze child temperament as a factor in predicting childhood obesity.
• Identify research methods and practices used to measure and understand emotion regulation and reactivity.

Key Concepts:

• Emotion regulation is an important skill for relationship development, but is also associated with pediatric obesity.
• People have a tendency to self-regulate eating based on automatic triggers like hunger, but our eating behaviors can also be affected by stress and emotional factors.
• Child characteristics that impact emotional regulation include temperament, but relationships and environmental interactions also determine how eating behaviors develop.
• “An emotion is the day’s weather, temperament is the season.”
• Assessments of temperament methods include parent surveys and behavioral tasks.
• Recent studies have looked at the combination of attachment security and temperament in the prediction of obesity effects.

Video Microlectures

• Video: Emotion Regulation in Pediatric Obesity
  Dr. Kelly K. Bost, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Optional Readings

• Bost, K. K., Wiley, A. R., Fiese, B., Hammons, A., McBride, B., and The STRONG Kids Team. (2015). Associations between adult attachment style, emotion regulation and preschool children’s food consumption. Journal Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 35, 50-61.