No abstract

This study investigated parental influences on preschool children’s healthy and unhealthy snacking in relation to child obesity in a large cross-sectional multinational sample. Parents and 3–5 year-old child dyads (n = 5185) in a kindergarten-based study provided extensive sociodemographic, dietary practice and food intake data. Parental feeding practices that were derived from questionnaires were examined for associations with child healthy and unhealthy snacking in adjusted multilevel models, including child estimated energy expenditure, parental education, and nutritional knowledge. Parental healthy and unhealthy snacking was respectively associated with their children’s snacking (both p < 0.0001). Making healthy snacks available to their children was specifically associated with greater child healthy snack intake (p < 0.0001). Conversely, practices that were related to unhealthy snacking, i.e., being permissive about unhealthy snacking and acceding to child demands for unhealthy snacks, were associated with greater consumption of unhealthy snacks by children, but also less intake of healthy snacks (all p < 0.0001). Parents having more education and greater nutritional knowledge of snack food recommendations had children who ate more healthy snacks (all p < 0.0001) and fewer unhealthy snacks (p = 0.002, p < 0.0001, respectively). In the adjusted models, child obesity was not related to healthy or unhealthy snack intake in these young children. The findings support interventions that address parental practices and distinguish between healthy and unhealthy snacking to influence young children’s dietary patterns.

Proactive and reactive functions of aggression are thought to manifest through different familial and emotional processes, even though they often co-occur. We investigated direct and indirect pathways through which maternal criticism and emotion regulation (ER) difficulties relate to reactive and proactive aggression in adolescence. Further, we examined how maternal criticism and emotion dysregulation interrelate, both concurrently and over time. Participants were 482 Dutch adolescents (M = 15.03, SD = 0.45, 57% boys) who self-reported on their ER difficulties, perceived maternal criticism, and reactive/proactive aggression. Cross-lagged panel modeling across four annual measurements revealed direct bidirectional links over time between maternal criticism and emotion dysregulation. Positive links over time from maternal criticism to proactive (but not reactive) aggression were also present. Emotion dysregulation and proactive aggression were linked only indirectly via maternal criticism. Gender did not significantly moderate these links. By revealing differential developmental pathways involving adolescents' ER and maternal criticism, the present study offers support for the dual function model of aggression. Aggr. Behav. 41:214-226, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Background. The threats to health, associated restrictions, and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have been linked to increases in mental health difficulties for many. Parents, in particular, have experienced many challenges such as having to combine work with home-schooling their children and other caring responsibilities. Yet, it remains unclear how parental mental health has changed throughout the pandemic or what factors may have mitigated or compounded the impact of the pandemic on parents’ mental health.Methods. We examined monthly survey data from two linked UK-based longitudinal studies: Co-SPACE and Co-SPYCE. Data from 5,576 parents/carers of 2-16-year-old children collected between April 2020 and January 2021 was analysed using mixed-effect modelling and latent class growth mixture modelling.Results. Parental stress and depression, but not anxiety, were higher during the periods of restrictions. This pattern was most pronounced for parents with primary-school-aged children, whilst parents with secondary-school-aged children showed greater continuous increases in mental health symptoms from the start of the pandemic. Although around three quarters of parents reported consistently low mental health symptoms, a substantial minority reported consistently high or increasing symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression. The latter were more likely to be parents who were younger than average, were a single adult in the household, had a pre-existing mental health diagnosis, or had a child with special educational needs or a neurodevelopmental disorder.Conclusions. These findings emphasise how different personal circumstances and pre-existing inequalities shaped how parents were affected by this unprecedented global pandemic and highlight the need for support and consideration to meet the needs of families in the future.