Power Thomas G, Olivera Yadira A, Hill Rachael A, Beck Ashley D, Hopwood Veronica, Garcia Karina Silva, Ramos Guadalupe G, Fisher Jennifer Orlet, O'Connor Teresia M, Hughes Sheryl O
Washington State University, Department of Human Development, PO Box 6452, Pullman, WA, 99164-4852, USA.
Temple University, Center for Obesity Research and Education, 3223 N. Broad Street, Suite 175, Philadelphia, PA, 19140, USA.
Appetite. 2016 Dec 1;107:623-627. doi: 10.1016/j.appet.2016.09.008. Epub 2016 Sep 13.
The current study examined the relationships between the specific strategies that preschool children use to regulate their emotions and childhood weight status to see if emotion regulation strategies would predict childhood weight status over and above measures of eating self-regulation. 185 4- to 5-year-old Latino children were recruited through Head Start centers in a large city in the southeastern U.S. Children completed both a delay of gratification task (emotion regulation) and an eating in the absence of hunger task (eating regulation). Eating regulation also was assessed by maternal reports. Four emotion regulation strategies were examined in the delay of gratification task: shut out stimuli, prevent movement, distraction, and attention to reward. Hierarchical linear regressions predicting children's weight status showed that both measures of eating regulation negatively predicted child obesity, and the use of prevent movement negatively predicted child obesity. Total wait time during the delay of gratification tasks was not a significant predictor. The current findings are consistent with studies showing that for preschool children, summary measures of emotion regulation (e.g., wait time) are not concurrently associated with child obesity. In contrast, the use of emotion regulation strategies was a significant predictor of lower child weight status. These findings help identify emotion regulation strategies that prevention programs can target for helping children regulate their emotions and decrease their obesity risk.
本研究考察了学龄前儿童用于调节情绪的具体策略与儿童期体重状况之间的关系，以确定情绪调节策略是否能在饮食自我调节测量之外预测儿童期体重状况。通过美国东南部一个大城市的“启智计划”中心招募了185名4至5岁的拉丁裔儿童。儿童们完成了一项延迟满足任务（情绪调节）和一项非饥饿状态下进食任务（饮食调节）。饮食调节也通过母亲的报告进行评估。在延迟满足任务中考察了四种情绪调节策略：排除刺激、阻止动作、分散注意力和关注奖励。预测儿童体重状况的分层线性回归表明，饮食调节的两项测量指标均对儿童肥胖有负向预测作用，而阻止动作的使用对儿童肥胖有负向预测作用。延迟满足任务期间的总等待时间不是一个显著的预测指标。当前的研究结果与一些研究一致，这些研究表明，对于学龄前儿童，情绪调节的综合测量指标（如等待时间）与儿童肥胖并无同时相关性。相比之下，情绪调节策略的使用是儿童较低体重状况的一个显著预测指标。这些发现有助于确定预防项目可以针对的情绪调节策略，以帮助儿童调节情绪并降低其肥胖风险。
