Associations Between Parental and Child Food Neophobia and Children’s Eating Behavior and Psychological Symptoms: A Cross-Sectional Mediation Analysis of South Korean Parent–Child Dyads

Objectives: Pediatric eating behavior and psychological adjustment may be related to family food-related attitudes. This cross-sectional study examined associations between parental and child food neophobia (FN) in South Korean parent–child dyads and evaluated whether child FN statistically mediated associations between parental FN and child eating-behavior and psychological-symptom indicators. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 300 parent–child dyads aged 6–12 years recruited through community mental health and counseling centers. Parent-reported FN, CEBQ indicators, and PSC-17 symptoms were analyzed using multivariable linear regression and 5000-resample bias-corrected bootstrap mediation models. Results: Parental FN was positively associated with parent-reported child FN (B = 0.31, 95% CI 0.21–0.42). In the mutually adjusted PSC-17 model, parental FN (B = 1.09, 95% CI 0.26–1.93) and child FN (B = 0.80, 95% CI −0.02–1.62) showed positive associations with PSC-17 Total; the child-FN association was not conventionally statistically significant (p = 0.056). The bootstrap indirect association through child FN was B = 0.212 (95% bias-corrected bootstrap CI 0.015–0.468). For the exploratory CEBQ Total, the corresponding indirect association was B = −0.706 (95% bias-corrected bootstrap CI −1.142 to −0.334). Conclusions: The findings indicate cross-sectional associations and statistically detectable indirect associations, but they do not establish temporal transmission or causality. Longitudinal and intervention studies are needed to determine whether these patterns are reproducible and temporally ordered.