Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Bowling Green State
University, 2005
Attitudes and Self-Perceptions of Young Children, Childhood Obesity

Email: sholub@utdallas.edu
Phone: 972-883-4473
Office: GR 4.822

About Shayla Holub

Dr. Holub’s primary research interests revolve around the attitudes and self-perceptions of young children. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Experimental Psychology at Millikin University and her doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology at Bowling Green State University. She is an assistant professor in Psychological Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

With growing concern about the negative outcomes of childhood obesity, as well as continuing concern about disordered eating in children and adolescents, it is essential that researchers learn more about the development of attitudes, cognitions and behaviors related to food and weight. Dr. Holub’s research explores the negative attitudes preschool-age children hold toward obesity, as well as their eating-related attitudes and knowledge. Results suggest that young children attribute negative characteristics (e.g., being dumb, mean, having no friends) to obese children. Further, preschoolers hold the most negative attitudes when they think it is a child’s fault for being overweight. Current work also suggests that even very young children participate in dieting behaviors, even if they aren’t able to accurately define the word diet.

As part of her research program, Dr. Holub also explores ecological influences on the development of young children’s attitudes, self-perceptions and behavior. For example, the parent-child feeding relationship is being examined as one context in which children receive messages about food, weight and body size. Current work explores the role of general parenting style in specific feeding practices, as well as how parental feeding is related to children’s actual eating behaviors, attitudes toward eating, personal body size satisfaction and obesity stigma.

Another focus of Dr. Holub’s research is related to the self-perceptions of young children. Theories about the development of self and anecdotal evidence suggest that young children are overly positive in their perceptions of self. For example, it is widely held that young children will report that they are very good at behaviors which, in fact, they cannot do at all. This research explores individual differences in young children’s positive bias by comparing children’s self-reports of perceived competence to reports of their actual competence (i.e., parental and teacher report and behavioral observations). Current work also examines the effects of experimental manipulation of negative feedback or social comparison information on children’s perceived competence.

Research Interests

My research focuses on young children’s attitudes and self-related cognitions. Current projects focus primarily on preschoolers’ eating and weight-related attitudes, as well as parents’ feeding practices (e.g., restricting children’s access to foods, modeling healthy food intake, using food as a reward). Future research will further examine the relationship between these feeding practices and child outcomes such as nutrition knowledge, non-adaptive eating habits, body size satisfaction, and anti-fat attitudes. Finally, I am also interested in developing and validating new measures and methodology to be used in research with preschool-age children.

Recent Publications

Holub, S. C., Musher-Eizenman, D. R., Persson, A. V., Edwards-Leeper, L. A., Goldstein, S. E., and Miller, A. B. (in press). Do preschool children understand what it means to ‘diet,’ and do they do it? International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Musher-Eizenman, D. R., Holub, S. C., Miller, A. B., Goldstein, S. E., and Edwards-Leeper, L. (2004). Body size stigmatism in preschool children: The role of control attributions. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 29, 613-620.

Musher-Eizenman, D. R., Holub, S. C., Edwards-Leeper, L., Persson, A. V., and Goldstein, S. E. (2003). The narrow range of acceptable body types for preschoolers and their mothers. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24, 259-272.