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J Abnorm Child Psychol (2006) 34:623634 DOI 10.1007/s10802-006-9045-8
ORIGINAL PAPER
Patterns of Aberrant Eating Among Pre-adolescent Children in Foster Care
Michael Tarren-Sweeney
Published online: 4 October 2006
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Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2006
Abstract The paper reports epidemiological and phenomenological investigations of aberrant eating among 347 pre-adolescent children in court-ordered foster and kinship care, in New South Wales, Australia. A quarter of children displayed clinically signicant aberrant eating problems, with no evidence of gender or age effects. Two distinct patterns were identied. The rst is a pattern of excessive eating and food acquisition and maintenance behaviors without concurrent obesity (termed Food maintenance syndrome), resembling the behavioral correlates of Hyperphagic Short Stature (Psychosocial Dwarsm). Various data suggest this pattern is primarily triggered by acute stress, including mal-treatment in care, against a background of complex psychopathology and developmental disabilities. The second is a cluster of pica-type eating behaviors that correlates with self-injurious behavior, and is closely associated with developmental disabilities. The paper includes recommendations for clinicians working with pre-adolescent children in care.
Keywords Foster care . Food maintenance . Hyperphagia . Child eating disorders . Developmental psychopathology . Pica
Children residing in foster care present with psychopathology that is complex and poorly conceptualized. Numerous studies have described conduct, attention-decit and affective problems among such children (Heinger, Simpkins, & Combs-Orme, 2000; Leslie et al., 2000, 2005), without revealing the complexity of their disturbances, or their manifestation of less common problems. Clinical and epiM. Tarren-Sweeney ([envelopeback])
School of Education, University of Canterbury, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch 8020, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected]
demiological studies of children in care have largely employed standard survey instruments, which measure only the most common forms of child psychopathology. Consequently, problems that are characteristic of children in care, but which are uncommon among children at large, remain under-researched (Tarren-Sweeney & Hazell, 2004). The most obvious of these are their attachment disturbances and age-inappropriate sexual behavior, while the most mysterious are their eating and food-related difculties. The present paper reviews the available literature, and reports ndings from an epidemiological and phenomenological investigation of the eating patterns of pre-adolescent children in foster and kinship care.
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