Mother's attitudes towards the feeding process and eating behaviors in children aged 9-36 months

Mother's Attitudes Towards The Feeding Process and Eating Behaviors in Children Aged 9-36 Months Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate maternal attitudes during the feeding process, children's eating behaviors, and factors that may affect both, identify the relationship between them if any, and to reveal areas where intervention can be made to improve the child feeding process. Materials and Methods: The study was conducted between April 1, 2024, and December 31, 2024, with 123 mothers who visited the Family Medicine outpatient clinics at Erol Olçok Training and Research Hospital. The participants were given a scale-data form that would take approximately 10 minutes to complete, and an appropriate time and environment were provided to ensure they could ask questions about unclear parts. The research used the following forms: "Mother's Attitudes Towards The Feeding Process Scale (BSATÖ)," "Infancy Period Adaptive Eating Behavior Scale (BDUYDÖ)" and a "Socio-demographic Data Form" created by the researchers through a literature review. Results: Groups with university or higher education, housewives, those who received professional child care support, families who ate 3-4 meals per day, mothers under 30 years old, and groups where only the mother fed the child, had statistically significantly lower total and/or subscale scores compared to other groups (p<0,05). Groups who started complementary feeding at the 5th-6th month, children aged 14-19 months, and children who were slightly overweight had statistically significantly higher total and/or subscale scores compared to the other groups (p<0,05). The average total score for the BDUYDÖ was 40,27 (±14,41), and the average total score for the BSATÖ was 60,5 (±16,05). Positive correlations were found between the total and subscale scores of both scales at various levels. Conclusion: According to the scale scores, moderate levels of feeding behavior problems in children and negative maternal feeding attitudes were identified. Various levels of positive correlation were found between maternal attitudes during the feeding process and children's eating behaviors. Various interventions can be developed to improve maternal attitudes in this relationship, as suggested by related studies. Keywords: Mother's attitudes, Feeding behavior, Mother-Child relationship, Feeding difficulties