Food for thought: Early childhood food refusal, maternal caregiving, and child sensory processing

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relations between child food refusal and maternal eating attitudes, maternal stress, and child sensory processing sensitivities in a sample of 268 mothers of children aged 12 to 36 months. Data was collected via maternal self-report on an online survey comprised of a demographic questionnaire, the Eating Attitudes Test -- 26, the Parenting Stress Index -- Short Form, and the Infant/Toddler Sensory Integration Evaluation Checklist. Participants were divided into a food refusal group or a non-food refusal group based on mothers' perceptions of their children's eating behaviors. Data analyses revealed that the eating attitudes of mothers in the food refusal group did not differ significantly from the attitudes of mothers in the non-food refusal group, yet there were statistically significant differences between groups for clinical levels of maternal stress and child sensory processing sensitivities. A logistic regression analysis indicated that child sensory processing was the most powerful statistically significant predictor of food refusal group status. The findings highlight the importance of addressing food refusal in the context of the relationship between caregiver and child. The results also suggest that infant mental health specialists devote special attention to children's sensory processing constitutions when designing interventions to support the parent-child relationship.