Energy balance-related behaviors (EBRBs), i.e., diet, sedentary behavior, physical activity, and sleep, combine into lifestyle patterns, which we aim to identify in French preschoolers and analyze their family correlates within the framework of a comprehensive socioecological model. Parental questionnaires provided information about family characteristics and children’s EBRBs for 978 5-year-olds of the EDEN cohort. We used principal component analysis to derive lifestyle patterns from EBRBs and hierarchical multivariable linear regressions to assess their associations with family socio-demographics, parent health/behaviors, and parent-child interactions. Analyses were stratified by sex. Of the three lifestyle patterns identified (unhealthy, healthy, and mixed), the mixed pattern differed the most between sexes. Lower parental education, suboptimal maternal diet, TV during meals, and later bedtime were associated with higher adherence to unhealthy patterns. Children cognitively stimulated at home and boys of mothers not employed adhered more to the healthy pattern. Older siblings (for girls) and higher engagement of parents in leisure-time physical activity (for boys) were related to greater adherence to mixed patterns. The identification of various correlates from multiple socioecological levels suggests that tackling the potentially synergistic effect of lifestyle patterns on health requires addressing processes relevant to the parent-child dimension and structural barriers parents may encounter.

Previous findings suggest that parental feeding practices may adapt to children’s eating behavior and sex, but few studies assessed these associations in toddlerhood. We aimed to study the associations between infant’s appetite or children’s genetic susceptibility to obesity and parental feeding practices. We assessed infant’s appetite (three-category indicator: low, normal or high appetite, labelled 4-to-24-month appetite) and calculated a combined obesity risk-allele score (genetic risk score of body mass index (BMI-GRS)) in a longitudinal study of respectively 1358 and 932 children from the EDEN cohort. Parental feeding practices were assessed at 2-year-follow-up by the CFPQ. Three of the five tested scores were used as continuous variables; others were considered as binary variables, according to the median. Associations between infant’s appetite or child’s BMI-GRS and parental feeding practices were assessed by linear and logistic regression models, stratified on child’s sex if interactions were significant. 4-to-24-month appetite was positively associated with restrictive feeding practices among boys and girls. Among boys, high compared to normal 4-to-24-month appetite was associated with higher use of food to regulate child’s emotions (OR [95% CI] = 2.24 [1.36; 3.68]). Child’s BMI-GRS was not related to parental feeding practices. Parental feeding practices may adapt to parental perception of infant’s appetite and child’s sex.

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