Abstract
Background
Food insecurity is hypothesized to influence mothers’ use of parenting strategies
to regulate children’s eating. Little is known about the parenting practices directed
toward adolescents in food-insecure households.
Objective
Our aim was to examine the differences in use of eating- and weight-related parenting
practices among mothers of adolescents by household food-security status.
Design
This was a cross-sectional study.
Participants/setting
A sociodemographically diverse sample of mothers and adolescents from the Minneapolis/St
Paul, MN, metropolitan area who participated in the Eating and Activity Among Teens
2010 and Project Families and Eating and Activity Among Teens studies in 2009 to 2010
(dyad n=2,087). Seventy percent of mothers identified as nonwhite.
Main outcome measures
We examined mother-reported use of parenting practices, including pressuring children
to eat, restricting high-calorie foods, and encouraging dieting.
Statistical analyses performed
Logistic regression models were used to determine the predicted probabilities of parenting
practices among food-secure, low food-secure, and very-low food-secure households.
Sociodemographic characteristics, mothers’ body mass index, and adolescents’ body
mass index-for-age percentile were examined as confounders.
Results
In unadjusted models, food-insecure mothers were more likely than food-secure mothers
to frequently encourage their children to diet, comment on their child’s weight, be
concerned about their child’s weight, use restrictive feeding practices, and use pressured
feeding practices. After adjustment for sociodemographic characteristics and mothers’
and children’s body mass index, compared to food-secure mothers, mothers with low
food security were more likely to frequently comment on their sons’ weight (41.5%
vs 32.9%, prevalence difference=8.6; 95% CI 0.9 to 16.3) and mothers with very low
food security were more likely to be concerned about their sons’ weight (48.8% vs
35.1%; prevalence difference=13.7; 95% CI 3.5 to 23.9). Mothers with very low food
security were more likely to frequently use restrictive feeding practices with their
daughters compared to food-secure mothers (33.0% vs 20.5%; prevalence difference=12.4;
95% CI 4.2 to 20.7).
Conclusions
Interventions to improve food-insecure adolescents’ eating behaviors may benefit from
supporting mothers’ use of health-promoting parenting practices.
Keywords
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Biography
K. W. Bauer is an assistant professor of public health, Center for Obesity Research and Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Biography
J. O. Fisher is a professor of public health, Center for Obesity Research and Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Biography
R. MacLehose is an associate professor, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Biography
N. I. Larson is a senior research associate, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Biography
D. Neumark-Sztainer is a professor, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Biography
K. A. Loth is a postdoctoral fellow, Department of Psychiatry, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Article info
Publication history
Published online: March 29, 2015
Accepted:
January 23,
2015
Received:
August 28,
2014
Footnotes
STATEMENT OF POTENTIAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
FUNDING/SUPPORT EAT 2010 and Project F-EAT were supported by grants R01HL084064 and R01HL093247 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
