This study aimed to illuminate the implications of COVID-19 school closures for sibling dynamics among Latinx school-age children in the U.S. and to examine family and cultural factors that may have conditioned school closure effects. Data came from an ongoing study of Latinx families in Arizona that collected home visit and survey data prepandemic (fall 2019; T1) and daily diary data during the outbreak (February to May 2020; T2). The analyses focused on 215 Latinx children (47% female; M age = 9.72, SD = 1.22; 88% Mexican-origin) from 116 families (T1 family income median = $27,600, SD = $24,421). Multilevel tobit regression models were estimated to examine associations linking both T2 school closure and number of days since school closure with daily sibling positivity and negativity. The models also tested moderation effects of T1 family socioeconomic status, sibship size, child enculturation, and prior sibling positivity and negativity on these associations. Results showed that, although main effects of school closure on sibling dynamics were nonsignificant, school closure was linked to more sibling positivity in families with more children and among more enculturated children, and days since school closure was linked to more sibling positivity in families with more children and to lower sibling negativity among those with less prepandemic sibling negativity. Findings highlight differentiated effects of COVID-19 school closures on sibling dynamics among Latinx children whose families have been disproportionally affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, illuminate the role of Latinx family cultural strengths, and have implications for intervention programs and public policies.

Objective: The aim of this study was to test whether the Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) responsive parenting (RP) intervention, delivered to parents of firstborn children, is associated with the BMI of firstand second-born siblings during infancy. Methods: Participants included 117 firstborn infants enrolled in a randomized controlled trial and their second-born siblings enrolled in an observation-only ancillary study. The RP curriculum for firstborn children included guidance on feeding, sleep, interactive play, and emotion regulation. The control curriculum focused on safety.Anthropometrics were measured in both siblings at ages 3, 16, 28, and 52 weeks.Growth curve models for BMI by child age were fit.Results: Second-born children were delivered 2.5 (SD 0.9) years after firstborns.Firstborn and second-born children whose parents received the RP intervention with their first child had BMI that was 0.44 kg/m 2 (95% CI: −0.82 to 0.06) and 0.36 kg/m 2 (95% CI: −0.75 to 0.03) lower than controls, respectively. Linear and quadratic growth rates for BMI for firstborn and second-born cohorts were similar, but second-born children had a greater average BMI at 1 year of age (difference = −0.33 [95% CI: −0.52 to −0.15]).

The majority of adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese, and yet Western ideals of beauty include low body fat composition as a component of physical attractiveness. In turn, perceived discrepancies between actual and ideal body shape and weight mean that many adults experience weight concerns—and they also may be dissatisfied with their spouse’s weight. This study examined whether weight concerns were linked to romantic relationship quality, an important domain of adult development. Specifically, we applied the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model to test how wives’ and husbands’ weight concerns and perceptions of their spouses’ overweight contributed to their own and their spouse’s reports of marital satisfaction and conflict over time. The sample was 197 heterosexual married couples ( Mage = 40.85 and 42.81 years for wives and husbands, respectively; Mlength of marriage = 18.6 years at Time 1) with children, who participated in a short-term longitudinal study of family relationships and adolescent development. Two-way interactions between partner perceptions of spouses’ weight and gender indicated that husbands’ perceptions that their wives were overweight predicted decreases in wives’ marital satisfaction and increases in wives’ reports of marital conflict across 1 year. In contrast, wives’ perceptions of husbands’ weight were not associated with changes in husbands’ marital satisfaction or conflict. A two-way interaction between actor and partner weight concerns indicated that individuals reported more marital conflict when there was a discrepancy between their own and their spouse’s weight concerns. Finally, a two-way interaction between actor and partner perceptions of spouse’s weight indicated that, for individuals whose spouses rated them as below ideal weight, their perceptions of the spouse’s overweight predicted their own lower marital satisfaction. Findings suggest that concerns about one’s own and one’s spouse’s weight have negative ramifications for marital relationships.

The current findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting the dual systems theorized to influence risk taking behavior interact to make joint contributions to health risk behaviors such as substance use in emerging adults.

Weight concerns are common among adolescents and are associated with a range of negative psychological and physical health outcomes. Self-esteem is one correlate of weight concerns, yet prospective research has not yet documented the direction of this association over the course of adolescence or whether this association differs by gender. This study sought to clarify the role of self-esteem in the development of adolescents' weight concerns and investigate the potentially protective role of father and mother responsiveness, another documented correlate of weight concerns. Participants were 392 predominately Caucasian/European American adolescents, ages 11-18, and their parents. Time-lagged mixed-effects models revealed bidirectional associations between self-esteem and weight concerns at the within-individual level over the course of adolescence. Results also confirmed the moderating roles of youth gender and father responsiveness in the prospective link between self-esteem and weight concerns such that father responsiveness buffered the effects of low self-esteem on weight concerns for girls but not boys. Only gender moderated the prospective link between weight concerns and self-esteem: On occasions when youth reported higher self-esteem than usual (compared to their own cross-time average), they reported fewer weight concerns the next year, but this effect was slightly larger for boys. Findings suggest that self-esteem and weight concerns are reciprocally related in adolescence and highlight the importance of examining interactions between family processes and individual characteristics to predict adolescent psychological adjustment. (PsycINFO Database Record