Psychosocial Concomitants of Children's Feeding Disorders

Compared behavior problems, child developmental skills, home environment, and parent emotional distress for 50 families of children aged 11–70 months with differing etiologies of feeding disorders (FD). Results showed that psychosocial functioning differed across FD classifications. Children with nonorganic characteristics to FD had more behavior problems compared to those with only organic FD. Children with primarily or only organic FD displayed lower developmental skills and their parents had higher emotional distress than children with primarily nonorganic FD. High parent distress was associated with older children who had poor feeding skills, less positive disciplinary practices, and higher social status. The findings imply that clinical services to families often are warranted and that service needs vary depending on the nature of FD. Mixed organic and nonorganic FD occurred in the majority of children, which supports the need for more detailed classification than an organic-nonorganic dichotomy used in prior research.