Siegelman's research shows that parental attitudes of rejection and lack of love produce introverted traits and high levels of anxiety in children.

A loving and accepting attitude towards the child produces extroverted traits and a lack of anxiety. Other authors also point out the momentous importance of intra-familial relationships and especially the types of parental attitudes presented by parents for the child's psychosocial development.

An extremely important element, according to Ziemska, is the quality of attitudes presented by the father and mother individually. Divergence or opposition - produce the most negative effects on the child's psychosocial development. The lack of a parenting coalition causes disorders in the child, often being a neurotic factor.

As emphasised by Ziemska, educational errors caused by inappropriate parental attitudes lead not only to temporary misunderstandings between parents and children, but cause permanent conflict.

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Systemically oriented authors treat any disturbance in a child's psychosocial development as a symptom of dysfunctionality in the family system. Also, the problem of eating disorders is interpreted as the result of malformed intra-family relations.

Researchers who deal with the problem of obesity in children consider the psychogenic factor that triggers excessive cravings to be an important cause of this disorder.

It is quite common to find opinions that a malfunctioning family system becomes a stimulus for emotional disturbances in the child, which can result in obesity. Increased appetite and excessive food intake are a reaction to the experiences and emotional difficulties the child is experiencing.

Eating then becomes a pleasure that compensates for unpleasant emotional tension. It is often the case that long-lasting internal tension triggers are the cause of hunger suppression.

According to Hurlock, uncharged energy that is aroused by an emotion can have adverse consequences for the individual's mental and physical wellbeing. The child discharges repressed energy by means of vicarious reactions, displaced reactions, repression or emotional outbursts.

Barker views overeating with subsequent obesity as compensation, in which excessive craving is a defence mechanism against anxiety or may be a surrogate form of aggression.

Popielarska believes that emotional factors - anger, rage, hostility, resentment, guilt, regret, sadness, insecurity, discouragement and, above all, feelings of anxiety - play an important role in the pathogenesis of obesity.