Kindness in childhood predicts healthy eating habits in teens

A new analysis using data from a longitudinal study that followed children between the ages of 5 and 17 has revealed a surprising association; kids who engaged in kind, caring, and helpful behaviors (being prosocial), were more likely to sustain healthy eating habits as teenagers. The findings from the study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, suggest that fostering prosociality throughout childhood may be a novel intervention strategy to promote healthy eating.

Researchers analyzed data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative study that followed children born in the United Kingdom for over 20 years, starting at birth. Parents reported on whether their child engaged in helping behaviors that reflect kindness, caring, and cooperation when they were 5, 7, and 11 years of age, and the investigators examined whether the extent to which children engaged in these behaviors was related to their self-reported fruit and vegetable consumption in adolescence (assessed at ages 14 and 17).

Reframing the narrative

"Too often, we focus on what is going wrong in young people's lives, but what we hear from them time and time again is that they are tired of that narrative. They want us adults to pay more attention to what is going right, including what they bring to their families and communities," says lead investigator Farah Qureshi, ScD, MHS, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "Prior research has found that behaviors that help others (like volunteering) are related to better health in older adults. We wanted to understand whether these types of activities benefit youth as well, focusing on a broader range of prosocial behaviors, like acts of kindness, cooperation, and caring for others. In our current research, we found that children who consistently displayed more of these kinds of positive social behaviors at any age were more likely to maintain healthy eating habits into their teenage years, a time when dietary choices set patterns that can shape lifelong health."

Senior author Julia K. Boehm, PhD, Department of Psychology, Chapman University, adds, "Prosocial behaviors, such as being considerate of others' feelings, sharing, helping if someone is hurt or upset, being kind, and volunteering to help others, can influence health by strengthening children's social ties and improving psychological functioning by promoting better mood, purpose, feelings of competence, and enhanced capacity to cope with stress. All of these, in turn, serve as resources that may inform health-related choices, as is evidenced by our latest findings."

Promoting prosocial behavior as a health asset

The study's strengths include its large sample, longitudinal design, and extensive covariate adjustment. Parenting or other aspects of the family environment may be unmeasured confounders. "Although we could not account for many of these factors due to data availability, we adjusted for parent-reported eating behaviors in childhood, along with other contributors to family climate (e.g., socioeconomic factors, parent marital status), which may account for some residual confounding," the authors explain.

Importantly, the analysis highlights a potential health asset – prosocial behavior – that can promote positive outcomes across the life course. These longitudinal findings support prior cross-sectional work that found youth prosocial behavior was related to healthier behaviors, including dietary patterns.

Co-author Laura D. Kubzansky, PhD, MPH, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, leads a novel research program on the long-term health impact of prosociality. She points out, "Asset-based interventions can open the door to new and creative health promotion strategies that engage youth in ways that speak to their inherent strengths, including shared values around kindness and cooperation. Supporting prosociality in childhood may be a promising health promotion strategy for future consideration."

Dr. Qureshi concludes, "We are living through a divisive time, when empathy can feel undervalued. This study offers us an important reminder about the power of kindness and compassion not only for those who receive it, but also for those who give it. Cultivating these qualities in kids may be an important and novel pathway to promoting public health."