TY - JOUR
T1 - A biopsychosocial model of sex differences in children’s eating behaviors
AU - Keller, Kathleen L.
AU - Kling, Samantha M.R.
AU - Fuchs, Bari
AU - Pearce, Alaina L.
AU - Reigh, Nicole A.
AU - Masterson, Travis
AU - Hickok, Kara
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This study was supported by the Penn State Social Sciences Research Institute, National Center of Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, NIH, Grant UL1TR000127 and by R01 DK110060 (Keller). The doctoral training of TM was supported by the USDA Childhood Obesity Prevention Training Grant #2011670013011. Imaging was conducted at the Penn State Social, Life, & Engineering Sciences Imaging Center, 3T MRI Facility.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2019/3
Y1 - 2019/3
N2 - The prevalence of obesity and eating disorders varies by sex, but the extent to which sex influences eating behaviors, especially in childhood, has received less attention. The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss the literature on sex differences in eating behavior in children and present new findings supporting the role of sex in child appetitive traits and neural responses to food cues. In children, the literature shows sex differences in food acceptance, food intake, appetitive traits, eating-related compensation, and eating speed. New analyses demonstrate that sex interacts with child weight status to differentially influence appetitive traits. Further, results from neuroimaging suggest that obesity in female children is positively related to neural reactivity to higher-energy-dense food cues in regions involved with contextual processing and object recognition, while the opposite was found in males. In addition to differences in how the brain processes information about food, other factors that may contribute to sex differences include parental feeding practices, societal emphasis on dieting, and peer influences. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings, as they may have implications for the development of effective intervention programs to improve dietary behaviors and prevent obesity.
AB - The prevalence of obesity and eating disorders varies by sex, but the extent to which sex influences eating behaviors, especially in childhood, has received less attention. The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss the literature on sex differences in eating behavior in children and present new findings supporting the role of sex in child appetitive traits and neural responses to food cues. In children, the literature shows sex differences in food acceptance, food intake, appetitive traits, eating-related compensation, and eating speed. New analyses demonstrate that sex interacts with child weight status to differentially influence appetitive traits. Further, results from neuroimaging suggest that obesity in female children is positively related to neural reactivity to higher-energy-dense food cues in regions involved with contextual processing and object recognition, while the opposite was found in males. In addition to differences in how the brain processes information about food, other factors that may contribute to sex differences include parental feeding practices, societal emphasis on dieting, and peer influences. Future studies are needed to confirm these findings, as they may have implications for the development of effective intervention programs to improve dietary behaviors and prevent obesity.
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U2 - 10.3390/nu11030682
DO - 10.3390/nu11030682
M3 - Review article
C2 - 30909426
AN - SCOPUS:85063807771
SN - 2072-6643
VL - 11
JO - Nutrients
JF - Nutrients
IS - 3
M1 - 682
ER -