Children's eating behaviors and food allergy history—A latent profile analysis

Background: A substantial number of children have food allergies, and this is an important contextual factor in parent–child eating interactions. This study investigates the eating behaviors of children with and without food allergies using data from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) dataset. The Children's Eating Behavior Questionnaire (CEBQ) is divided into eight appetitive subscales, including Food Responsiveness, Emotional Overeating, Enjoyment of Food, Desire to Drink, Satiety Responsiveness, Slowness in Eating, Emotional Undereating, and Food Fussiness. An articulated aim of the CEBQ was to enable examination of children's eating styles and obesity risk. Previous studies have examined dimensions of the eight individual eating behaviors and their associated risk of obesity in isolation. Methods: Latent Profile Analysis was used in this study to identify profiles of children based on eating behaviors and food allergy history (13.5% in the current study) and their association with obesity risk. Results: Using Latent Profile Analysis, four distinct eating behavior profiles were identified: Apathetic Eaters, Motivated Eaters, Enthusiastic Eaters, and Mixed Eaters. The study found that children classified as Motivated Eaters had the highest odds of obesity, while children with food allergies were relatively evenly distributed across the profiles. The findings suggest that combinations of eating behaviors, rather than individual traits, are informative when assessing children's obesity risk. Conclusion: This research highlights the need for targeted interventions based on specific eating behavior profiles and underscores the importance of including children with food allergies in studies of eating behaviors and obesity.