Gillian Harris

• BA Phd, MSc
• University of Birmingham

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have a restricted dietary range, and this book provides parents with advice and training on how to deal with this condition and achieve a healthier and more balanced diet. Now described as Avoidant or Restrictive Food Intake Disorder (ARFID), it is due to sensory hypersensitivity, and it can impact...

Advice about the age for introducing complementary food to infants varies across European countries. Little is known about the actual practice of complementary feeding (CF) in the face of different advice from health professionals within Europe, nor about the impact of different ages of onset of CF on infant food acceptance. This longitudinal study...

This study aimed to explore the sensory processing profiles of children with the spectrum of optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH). Caregivers completed the Short Sensory Profile (SSP), the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ), and the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scale (VABS) interview. The study demonstrated that children with ONH present with sensory...

Purpose of Review A sensitive period in development is one in which it is easier for learning to take place; the behaviour can however still be learned at a later stage, but with more difficulty. This is in contrast to a critical period, a time at which a behaviour must be learned, and if this window of opportunity is missed, then the behaviour can...

Objective: The present study explored differences in mental health between women who experienced a trauma which involved a loss of fetal or infant life compared to women whose trauma did not involve a loss (difficult childbirth). Method: The sample consisted of 144 women (mean age = 31.13) from the UK, USA/Canada, Europe, Australia/New Zealand, who...

Current dietary advice for children is that they should eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day (Department of Health. National Diet and Nutrition Survey, 2014). However, many parents report that children are reluctant to eat vegetables and often fail to comply with the five-a-day rule. In fact, in surveys carried out in areas in t...

The main aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that early reactions to a vegetable in infants may be associated with sensory processing, in particular, tactile over-responsivity. A secondary aim was to see whether the relationship between sensory over-responsivity and vegetable consumption would be moderated by the age of the infant....

Background Due to contradictory findings regarding the effects of seeing and holding stillborn infants on women’s worsening mental health symptoms, there is a lack of clear of guidance in stillbirth bereavement care. Although some current research examines this phenomenon we are still not certain of the meaning of such experiences to women and what...

Few children consume the recommended portions of fruit or vegetables. This study examined the effects of parental physical prompting and parental modelling in children's acceptance of a novel fruit (NF) and examined the role of children's food-approach and food-avoidance traits on NF engagement and consumption. A total of 120 caregiver-child dyads...

The first five years of life are fundamental for the development of future eating patterns (Savage, Fisher& Birch, 2007). Previous research has shown that children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) may present with aberrant eating behaviour such as food refusal and extreme selective eating. It has been suggested that although children who are t...

The aim of the current study was to examine the effectiveness of different vegetable exposure methods (variety versus single taste) over a 9 day period in two groups of infants; those introduced to solids prior to the age of 5.5 months, and those introduced after 5.5 months. Sixty parent-infant dyads were recruited in South Birmingham, UK. Infants'...

Children begin to reject new foods (food neophobia) at around 18 to 30 months. At this time parents also report the rejection of known and previously accepted foods. The studies presented here are the first to examine this rejection of previously accepted foods in isolation and presents a number of significant findings. Using a parental questionnai...

Disgust, the “revulsion at the prospect of (oral) incorporation of an offensive substance”, is not thought to influence the acceptability of food during infancy and early childhood. This is because the feelings of disgust require a person to have developed an understanding of contagion and to be aware of the nature and origin of a given disgust sti...

Children begin to reject new foods (food neophobia) at around 18 to 30 months. At this time parents also report the rejection of known and previously accepted foods. The studies presented here are the first to examine this rejection of accepted foods in isolation and presents a number of significant findings. Using a parental questionnaire, it was...

Wide availability of highly palatable foods is often blamed for the rising incidence of obesity. As palatability is largely determined by the sensory properties of food, this study investigated how sensitivity to these properties affects how much we eat. Forty females were classified as either high or low in sensory sensitivity based on their score...

This study was conducted to examine whether disliked foods can act as contaminants to liked foods during infancy. Participants (aged 18-26 months, N=18) were offered a liked food that was touching a disliked food, on the same plate. Their response to this liked food was compared to the infants' response to a control condition; a liked food touching...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that a disliked food can act as a contaminant to liked food during childhood. While this has been investigated in an infant sample, the current paper presents the first study to investigate this phenomenon in a sample of young children (4 years 5 months-6 years 1 month old, N=30). Children were shown a liked food at diff...

To describe fruit and vegetable (FV) feeding practices at 6 months, and to examine whether these practices predict children's FV intake at 7 years of age. A prospective, longitudinal design was adopted. The mothers completed self-reported questionnaires at 6 months and 7 years postpartum, containing questions about their child's FV intake. The stud...

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition is a high quality, peer-reviewed journal that covers all aspects of human nutrition.

The food fed to infants and young children not only determines their health in childhood but also predicts the foods that they eat in later life. Because adult dietary preferences are partially formed in childhood, the childhood diet inevitably contributes to the long-term health of the individual. We are all aware of preferences that have endured...

The study aimed to follow up children who had been introduced to lumpy solids (chewy foods) at different ages, and to assess their dietary intake and feeding difficulties at seven years of age. Information was collected from a geographically defined population of 7821 mothers of children born in 1991/92, part of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Paren...

Mental health has implications for the quality of relationships within a family, particularly between parents and children, but also between other family and non-family members. Previous research has investigated parental reports of attachment in families with mental health problems, but relationship representations as experienced by these children...

There are concerns about the rising incidence of obesity in children and their acceptance of healthy foods. Many factors affect children's food acceptance, the most salient are those enabling early exposure to culturally appropriate foods in the weaning or pre-weaning period. Parents, however, have always observed individual differences in children...

Summary The toddler years (12–36 months) are a period of changing nutritional requirements and food intake. As a time of considerable growth and development, they are crucial not only to the health of the toddler, but also to his or her later health. Toddlers need a relatively energy-dense diet to meet their needs for growth and activity, but also...

It has previously been shown that stress situations reveal an association between perfectionism and unhealthy eating attitudes in nonclinical females. The present study aimed to extend these findings by also measuring psychological and physiological reactions to induced stress. Forty-two female university students completed measures of state anxiet...

Until recently, it was widely accepted that eating-disordered symptoms are caused and maintained by patterns of maladaptive thinking (negative automatic thoughts and dysfunctional assumptions) regarding body size, shape, and weight. However, current research and clinical investigations suggest that broader patterns of maladaptive thinking exist in...

The study aimed to establish the relationships between recalled paternal rearing behaviours, core beliefs and eating symptomatology and to test whether core beliefs play a mediating role between the father-daughter relationship and eating psychopathology. Associations between eating psychopathology, core beliefs and recalled parental rearing behavi...

This study explored and compared the patterns of core beliefs, recalled parental rearing behaviours and eating psychopathology in non-clinical females of different ages; university staff and university students. No differences were found between the two age groups except that younger women had higher Drive for Thinness scores. However, core beliefs...

Core beliefs about the self are hypothesized to be rooted in early interpersonal experiences, particularly with one's family (Young, 1999). This study aimed to assess the relationship between reports of core beliefs and current parental attachment in young women. Two hundred and six young women completed self-report questionnaires to ascertain thei...

Core beliefs have been shown to mediate between eating psychopathology and dysfunctional parent-daughter interactions. However, the possible moderating role of core beliefs has been neglected. This study aimed to explore the hypothesis that core beliefs serve as moderator variables in the relationship between recalled parental rearing behaviours an...

Summary The aim of this intervention was to affect a change in the food choices of adolescents (11–16 years old) at school by giving pupils more control over the food provision in their school through the establishment of the School Nutrition Action Groups. The study compared food selections and pupils’ views of the catering service between 12 scho...

Objective The study aimed to investigate cognitive factors in eating disorder recovery by examining the content and intensity of negative core beliefs in women who were currently suffering from an eating disorder and women who had recovered.Method Sixty-six women with a current eating disorder, 29 women who reported that they had recovered from an...

Tube feeding is commonly used as a method of giving children nutrition while they are being treated for disease. While this is an effective way of ensuring a child thrives and grows, research studies and clinical experience have shown that long-term oral feeding difficulties often arise when the child no longer requires tube feeding. This article g...

This study describes the pattern of emotional and behavioural difficulties of children whose mothers have mental illness, and explores the relationship between children’s behavioural and emotional difficulties and maternal perceptions of attachment. Thirteen mothers previously admitted to psychiatric hospital for mental illness completed a measure...

The aim of this small study was to investigate three hypothesised predictors of feeding difficulties in late infancy. Oral‐motor‐skill function, illness, and mealtime negativity were investigated as possible predictors. Eighteen mothers were visited when their infants were approximately 18 months old (range 15–21 months), and asked to complete thre...

This review describes the research evidence linking parental eating problems with processes that affect children's food selection and rejection, including child feeding difficulties, and child dieting practices and attitudes. First, studies that assess the relationship between parental eating disorder and child feeding are reviewed. Secondly, resea...

Aesthetic sport athletes are subject to pressures to be thin. Because such pressures may vary across different subtypes of gymnastics, differences between 3 gymnastics types (artistic, rhythmic, and sports acrobatics) on indices of eating disturbances were investigated. This was performed with a younger sample than has commonly been the norm. Fifty...

A prospective, longitudinal study was carried out to investigate the relationship between maternal mood and feeding problems, in particular food refusal. A total of 116 mothers and infants were visited at 1 month, 5 months and 11 months postpartum. Mothers filled in the EPDS and the STAI at each of the three visits, and reported whether the infant...

This case study aimed to describe an intervention with a 2-year-old child with growth problems and moderately severe feeding difficulties. The intervention was based on cognitive behavioural principles and psycho-physiological techniques, and focused on reducing parental anxiety and returning the control of feeding to the child. The child's feeding...

In order to identify the prevalence and severity of feeding problems in children with Silver-Russell syndrome (SRS) the feeding difficulties of 32 children with SRS and 32 age- and sex-matched control children were assessed using the Feeding Assessment Questionnaire (Harris and Booth 1992). Children's ages ranged from 2 to 11 years, with 19 male an...

In order to identify the prevalence and severity of feeding problems in children with Silver-Russell syndrome(SRS) the feeding difficulties of 32 children with SRS and 32 age- and sex-matched control children were assessed using the Feeding Assessment Questionnaire (Harris and Booth 1992). Children's ages ranged from 2 to 11 years, with 19 male and...

The incidence of food refusal associated with illness is reviewed, not illness by illness, but according to those factors that affect the ability to eat; normal learning about eating, aversive learning about eating, regulation of appetite, children's cognitions about foods, and parental anxiety about intake. Diseases affecting the major organs are...

To assess the effect of therapeutic doses of growth hormone (GH) on the feeding problems, food intake, body fat and mealtime interactions of children with growth disorders, an age-matched group of 46 children with Turner syndrome (TS) or Silver Russell syndrome (SRS) was examined using questionnaire measures and direct observation. The children's b...

A self-perpetuating cycle has been implicated between early childhood feeding problems and later eating disorders; between parental management style and eating disorders in the child; and between the way a mother was raised and her own parenting behaviour. Questionnaires were distributed to all nurseries in a discrete area of the West Midlands, to...

The strict low phenylalanine diet used in the treatment of phenylketonuria (PKU) may adversely affect feeding behaviour and nutritional status in PKU children. The feeding behaviour of 15 unselected PKU children (12 girls, 3 boys) aged 1–5 years (mean age 3 years) was studied. Each child was matched with an unrelated age- and sex-matched non-PKU co...

It has frequently been observed that children like those foods that are deliberately withheld by the parent. The effect of restraint on food preference was therefore investigated in children aged 3 to 8 years. The tasks used was that devised by Lepper et al. (1982, J. Personal. Soc. Psychol., 2, 61-65). The original findings were first replicated....

Behavioural feeding problems were found to be more prevalent in a group of 15 PKU children aged 1-5 years when compared to non-PKU controls. The parents of PKU children identified poorer apatites (p < 0.01), a more limited range of foods consumed (p < 0.03) and more gastrointestinal symptoms such as vomiting and constipation (p < 0.03) than control...

The introduction of solid food to an infant is usually addressed in terms of a “correct” time for introduction. There is usually also a discussion of “appropriate” foods which may be introduced to the infant; these foods will change according to prevailing health priorities. Concentrates on the contribution made by the infant to the timing and type...

Twelve infants, aged 16–25 weeks and formerly breast-fed, were tested for their preference for the taste of salt in the first food fed to them. Preference was found to decline with infant age. Because preference for salted food is known to relate to dietary experience of salt in 6-month-old infants, this decline suggests that an initial salt prefer...

Factors determining the introduction of solid food into an infant's diet were studied in an urban sample of breastfeeding mothers. The time at which a mother intended to introduce solid food was found to be a reliable predictor of actual age of introduction, p < 0.01. However, infant birth weight also significantly improved the prediction of weanin...

Infants were tested at six and 12 months of age for their preference for salt in a familiar food. The relationship was examined between preference for the salted food and the infant's dietary experience of high-sodium foods in the week prior to testing. At both ages infants consumed more of the salted test food. At six months a positive correlation...