OSS was confirmed to have stronger association with children's HRQOL than parental SSS. This is in contrast to some research on adults, raising the questions of how best to assess SSS relevant to children and at what point in development SSS may influence children's health and well-being. The persistent relationship found between parental OSS and child health suggests that efforts to improve low socioeconomic resources in families may contribute to improve children's health.
Objective: This study examined how parental general monitoring (PGM), which refers to parental awareness of adolescents' activities in various domains, is associated with adolescents' weight status and related behaviors and whether these relationships differ among racial/ethnic groups. Methods: Data are from 4,088 Black, Latino, and White youth assessed in seventh grade (mean age = 13.06). BMI percentile based on measured height and weight indicated weight status. PGM was assessed by adolescent report of parents' awareness of money spending, friends, and whereabouts. Adolescents reported both healthy and unhealthy dietary intake (DI), physical activity, and screen time over the past 7 days. Total sample and multigroup structural models were estimated. Results: PGM was associated with lower weight status for the total sample, as well as being positively associated with healthy DI and physical activity and inversely associated with screen time across racial/ethnic groups. PGM was also inversely associated with unhealthy DI, except for in Black adolescents. There was an indirect effect from PGM to lower weight status via reduced screen time among Latino and White adolescents. Conclusions: Positive outcomes associated with PGM are extended to weight status and related behaviors. Efforts at improving weight status and related behaviors could benefit from addressing general parenting practices with their children.
We evaluate how two aspects of socioeconomic status, parental objective and subjective social status, are associated with health-related quality of life in three racial/ethnic groups during pre-to mid-adolescent development, using growth curve modeling. In a longitudinal cohort study, 4,048 Black, Latinx, or White adolescents were assessed in 5th, 7th and 10th grade. Objective social status (OSS) was based on parent-reported highest household educational attainment and total household income, and subjective social status (SSS) was measured with the MacArthur Scale, through which parents indicated their social standing in reference to community and national norms. Adolescents completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory to measure their physical and psychosocial health-related quality of life. Based on growth curve modeling of the intercept, adolescents whose parents have higher OSS levels reported better health-related quality of life, whereas parental SSS was not associated with adolescent health-related quality of life in 5 th grade. These findings were largely consistent across racial/ethnic groups. Based on growth curve modeling of the developmental slopes (or growth curves), higher objective social status was associated with a slower positive growth of health-related quality of life from 5 th to 10 th grade, which was largely consistent across racial/ethnic groups. The opposite appeared for parental SSS and physical health-related quality of life, and only for Latinx, where higher parental perceived social status was associated with an acceleration of positive change. Family income and education may influence health-related quality of life at the start of adolescence, but its effect appears to diminish as youth mature. However, in Latinx youth, parents' perceived social status may continue to influence improvement in their physical health-related quality of life as they mature.Keywords Adolescence • Health-related quality of life • Socioeconomic status • Race • Ethnicity Highlights • Socioeconomic status (SES) is known to influence health throughout the lifespan, but the potentially different influence from different components of SES during adolescent development is unknown.• Parental income and education level are positively associated with health-related quality of life (HRQOL) for youth in 5 th grade.
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 changed the daily lives of families, including their food environments. We tested a conceptual model of potential influences on children’s dietary intake under these conditions. 306 (51% fathers) parents with children ages 5- 12 were recruited for an online study, where they completed questionnaires to measure fear of COVID-19, family communication patterns, parental controlling feeding practices, and child’s healthy and unhealthy food intake. Structural equation modeling was used, including a multi-group analysis to compare mothers and fathers. Parental fear of COVID-19 was positively related to communication patterns, which were positively associated with parental controlling feeding practices. Communication patterns were also linked to child unhealthy food intake, but only for mothers. General family communication patterns play an important role in children’s dietary intake. Therefore, it may be useful to help parents adopt general positive parenting approaches to influence their children’s healthy development.
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused abrupt changes in the daily lives of most families, including their food environments. Fear of COVID-19 and family communication patterns are hypothesized to influence parental feeding practices and ultimately children’s intake of healthy as well as unhealthy foods. Based on a conceptual model of direct and indirect effects among these variables, we test these hypotheses in an observational cross-sectional design.Methods: 306 parents (51% fathers) with children in the age range 5 - 12 were recruited via a Facebook snowball sampling method. They completed questionnaires online to measure fear of COVID-19, conversation- and conformity-oriented family communication patterns, and parental controlling feeding practices. In addition, they reported on the child’s intake of food categories marking healthy (fruits and vegetables) and unhealthy (juice, soda, sweets, fast foods) diets. The conceptual model was analyzed with structural equations modeling, including a multi-group analysis to discern differences between mothers and fathers. Results: There were significantly positive associations between parental fear of COVID-19 and both conversation and conformity family communication patterns, both of which in turn were positively associated with parental controlling feeding practices. Conversation communication pattern was associated with reduced unhealthy food intake in children. For the most part, these associations occurred for both mothers and fathers. However, whereas fathers’ communication patterns were not related to children’s food intake, mothers’ conversation pattern was negatively, and conformity pattern was positively, associated with children’s unhealthy food intake.Conclusion: COVID-19 has had a profound impact on families, including children’s dietary intake. These results underscore that general family patterns play an important role for children’s dietary intake. Therefore, it may be useful to help parents adopt general positive parenting approaches to influence their children’s healthy development, including dietary intake.
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