母亲性格影响儿童饮食习惯
2009-05-26 20:37:38   来源：   作者：  评论：0 点击：

ScienceDaily (Apr. 8, 2009) — Mothers with many negative thoughts and feelings are more likely to give their children unhealthy food. This is shown in a study from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in collaboration with the University of Oslo.
每日科学（2009年4月8日）--充满消极思想和感受的母亲更容易给他们的孩子不健康食品。这一结果来自一项由挪威公共健康研究所和奥斯陆大学的合作研究。

This is the first research project in the world that analyses children’s diets combined with both psychological and sociodemographic variables in the mother. As part of the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, a total of 27,763 mothers were asked how often and how much their 18 month old child ate of 36 types of food and drink. By this age, children learn to prefer sweet and fatty food over healthy food.
这是世界上首例结合母亲的心理以及社会人口变异分析儿童饮食的研究。作为挪威母亲和儿童队列研究的一部分，共有27，763母亲参与调查，研究调查了他们18个月大的孩子食用36类食物和饮料的次数和数量。在这段时期，儿童学会更偏好甜食和油脂食品而非健康食品。

"We found that mothers who were emotionally unstable, anxious, angry, sad, had poor self-confidence or a negative view of the world were far more likely to give their child sweet and fatty foods. At the same time, there was no link between maternal personality and how healthy a diet the child got in the form of fruit and vegetables," explains psychologist Eivind Ystrøm at the NIPH.
“我们发现那些情绪不稳定、焦虑、愤怒、悲伤、缺乏自信或对世界抱有悲观情绪的母亲更容易给他们孩子甜食和油脂食品。同时，母亲性格与儿童以水果和蔬菜的形式获得怎样的健康饮食之间无关联。”NIPH的心理学家Eivind Ystrom解释到。

These maternal personality traits fall under a collective name of high negative affectivity (negative emotions). These people often have a lower stress threshold, giving up quicker when faced with obstacles – e.g. in a disagreement – and often experience lack of control of the child.
这些母亲的性格特征被统称为高度负向情绪（消极情绪）。这些人通常压力阈值较低，当遇到阻碍时很容易放弃——如，当意见不一致时，并且他们常常不进行计划生育。

"I think that mothers compensate for this either by trying to force healthy food into their child or hold the sweet-bag strings extra tightly," Ystrøm continues. "Paradoxically, they try to balance poor control by actually using more control. With force and restrictions they increase desire which quickly results in resistance in the form of tantrums which these mothers are also bad at resisting. Also, earlier studies have shown that controlling behaviour among parents is linked with a more sugar-rich diet among children."
“我认为妈妈们可以通过努力强加给孩子健康食品或者牢牢系住糖果袋以弥补这种危险。”Ystrom 继续谈到，“恰恰相反的，在实际中，她们试图运用更多的控制来平衡失控。伴随着强力和限制，她们的欲望增加，这加速了她们对灾难的抗拒，而这些母亲亦不善于抵抗。并且，早期研究表明父母中的控制行为与儿童更容易出现高糖饮食相关。“

Aid to nutritional advice
有益的营养建议

Ystrøm believes that knowledge about the link between the parents’ personality traits and children’s eating habits will be useful for health personnel and others who give nutritional advice.
Ystrom认为，对于卫生专员以及其他给予营养建议的人而言，了解父母性格特点和儿童饮食习惯之间的关联性是非常有益的。

"People with a lot of negative affectivity often express worry and appear to be helpless and insecure. Research into this type can help to create a toolbox of advice to relieve the feeling of stress and lack of coping and improve the child’s diet. Unfortunately we could not study the fathers, but it is likely that this also applies to them. Men with a lot of negative affectivity often express this in the form of anxiety or anger, but otherwise the characteristics are identical between the sexes."
“具有过多负面情绪的人常表现担心、无助与不安。对该类人群的研究将有助于建立一套处理建议从而减轻压力感以及缺乏应对和改善儿童饮食的能力。不幸的是，我们没有研究父亲，但是这似乎也适用于他们。具有较多负面情绪的男性常表现出焦虑或者愤怒，但是另一方面，性别间的性格是一致的。”

Independent of sociodemographic factors
独立的社会人口学因子

Research results were also controlled for the following sociodemographic factors; the child’s sex, smoking, child attending nursery, education, mother’s age, mother’s BMI, number of children, income and marital status. These data were collected from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway at the NIPH. None of them explained the effect that the mother’s negative affectivity had on the child’s diet.
研究结果也对如下社会人口学因素加以控制：儿童性别、吸烟、儿童是否上幼儿园、教育、母亲的年龄、母亲的体重指数（BMI）、孩子的数量、收入以及婚姻状态。这些数据由NIPH的挪威医学出生注册处收集。这些指标均无法解释母亲负面情绪对儿童饮食的影响。

"Or, to put it another way, the impact of sociodemographic variables on children’s eating habits was unaffected by the mother’s personality traits," says Ystrøm.
“或者，从另一个角度看，社会人口学变异对儿童饮食习惯的影响不是因母亲的性格特征造成的。”Ystrom如是说。

Mothers who smoked daily, had a high BMI, had many children, had male child / children who went to nursery were less likely to give them a healthy diet. If the mothers were daily smokers, with a high BMI and/or many children, there was a greater chance that they would give their children an unhealthy diet. However, if mothers had a higher education and/or were older, they were more likely to give their children healthier food.
每日吸烟，伴有较高的BMI、育有许多孩子并且送男孩上幼儿园母亲不大可能向孩子们提供健康饮食。如果母亲是每日吸烟者，具有较高的BMI或（和）有许多孩子，她们为孩子提供不健康饮食的可能性非常大。但是，如果母亲具有较高的学历或（和）年龄较大，她们更可能为孩子提供更为健康的食物。

First study of 18 month old children’s nutritional patterns
对18个月大儿童营养类型的首例研究

As well as being the first study to compare a child’s diet with psychological and sociodemographic factors in the mother, this is also the first time that nutritional patterns in such young children are studied.
本研究不但是将儿童饮食与母亲心里和社会人口学因素进行比较分析的首例研究，这也是首次对如此小的儿童进行营养类型的研究。

"This is important because we discovered that the same socioeconomic risk factors for sweet and fatty foods that were found earlier among three to six-year old children in England were already present at 18 months," says Ystrøm. "In addition, this shows that parents’ ability to master stress can affect children’s eating habits from a very early age."
“这个是非常重要的，因为我们发现了与英国三到六岁儿童相同的社会经济危险因子，而这早在儿童18月大的时候就出现了，”Ystrom谈到，“此外，研究表明父母处理压力的能力会在孩子很小的时候就影响孩子的饮食习惯。”

More about the method
研究方法

Earlier studies indicate that anxiety and post-natal depression can affect a child’s eating habits. However, post-natal depression arises infrequently and usually abates during the first year, so it is probably irrelevant for the child’s eating habits over time. Therefore, with colleagues Susan Niegel and Margarete E. Vollrath, Ystrøm extended the research question to include the mother’s personality measured by negative affectivity.
较早的研究指出焦虑与产后抑郁症会影响儿童的饮食习惯。但是，产后忧郁症并不常出现并且常于产后第一年就可治愈，随着时间的延长，这很可能和儿童的饮食习惯无关。因此，根据Ystrom同伴Susan Niegel和Margarete E. Vollrath的研究，他将研究范围外沿至通过负面情绪测定母亲性格。“

Children’s eating habits were categorised as “healthy” and ”unhealthy”. Data were cross-checked with information about the mother’s demographic, medical and socioeconomic background from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health’s Medical Birth Registry. ”Healthy” and “unhealthy” foods were mutually uncorrelated for negative affectivity in the analysis, i.e. a child getting ice-cream for dessert would not affect the variable that the same child had sprouts for dinner.
儿童的饮食习惯被分为“健康”和“不健康”两类。研究数据与挪威公共健康研究所医学生育注册处提供的关于母亲人口学、医学以及社会学资料进行反复核对。在本研究中，“健康“和”非健康“食品对于负面情绪互不相关，例如，儿童获得冰淇淋作为甜点并不对同意儿童吃晚饭的变量造成影响。

Weaknesses of the study
研究的缺陷

The breadth and the number of indicators for the children’s eating habits were limited, as were the types of food that 18 month old children generally eat. Researchers only evaluated which foods children ate and not how they were served their food. Finally, a complete personality evaluation of the mothers could point to a more obvious and overall effect of their personality.
用于儿童饮食习惯的预示子的广度和数量有限，因为18个月大的儿童通常食用食物的种类有限。研究者仅评价了儿童吃什么食物并没有调查他们怎样吃这些食物。最终，一项对母亲更为完善的性格评估可以对他们性格的影响做出更为明确和完善的说明。

"Therefore, future studies should include all the five basic personality traits that are usually used in personality tests; extroversion, control, sociability and openness to new experiences, in addition to negative affectivity. It can also be interesting to look even closer at the process between a mother’s personality trait and the child’s diet that causes children of mothers with high negative affectivity to have a poor diet," says Ystrøm.
“因此，进一步的研究应该包括用在性格测试中的所有五种基本人格特点；包括除负面情绪以外的外向性、克制性、随和性、求新性性格。更有趣的研究是进一步观察母亲性格特征和孩子饮食之间的过程，具有高度负面情绪的母亲其孩子出现不良饮食的原因。”Ystrom谈到。
In an earlier study, Ystrøm and his colleagues highlighted that mothers with a high level of negative affectivity often cease breastfeeding before the recommended six month limit.
在一项早期研究中，Ystrom和他的同伴注意到具有高度负面情绪的母亲常常在推荐6个月哺乳期前就停止母乳喂养。