Family lifestyle is related to low‐income preschoolers' emotional well‐being during COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

Problem COVID‐19 has profoundly impacted children's behavioral and psychosocial development, especially young children from low‐income families. This study examined how caregivers' and preschoolers' lifestyle behaviors (sleep, screen time, physical activity, eating behavior) were related to preschoolers' emotional well‐being (sadness, fear, anger, and positive affect). Methods Using a cross‐sectional design, we recruited low‐income caregivers from Head Start organizations and the Qualtrics panel. Participants provided consent and completed an online survey. Findings A total of 408 caregivers (mean age = 31) participated: 17% Hispanic, 21% Black, 49% separated/single, 44% unemployed, and 39% with ≤high school education. After adjusting for demographics and preschoolers' lifestyle behaviors, caregivers' sleep disturbance was positively correlated with preschoolers' anger, fear, and sadness, while negatively related to positive affect. Similarly, caregivers' sleep time was positively correlated with preschoolers' sadness and negatively related to positive affect. Preschoolers' sleep time was negatively related to fear and positively related to positive affect. Likewise, preschoolers' physical activity was negatively correlated with fear, sadness, and positively correlated with positive affect. Additionally, preschoolers' fruit/vegetable intake was negatively associated with anger, fear, sadness, and positively associated with positive affect. Conclusions The identified behavior‐emotion connection provides a foundation for developing family‐based lifestyle interventions in promoting mental health among preschoolers.

Mental health and lifestyle behavior changes during COVID‐19 among families living in poverty: A descriptive phenomenological study

“…Thus, our study provides an original contribution to the literature by capturing US caregivers' views of their families' physical and mental health challenges and their coping strategies during the pandemic. While most of the existing studies used a quantitative approach (e.g., Karpman et al, 2020; Ling et al, 2023; Robbins & Ling, 2022), our study used a qualitative phenomenological approach to examine lifestyle behavior and mental health changes incurred by COVID‐19. We analyzed participants' qualitative voices to provide important insights regarding the compounding effects of COVID‐19 on caregivers and preschoolers in the US.…”

Temporal changes in mental response and prevention patterns, and their impact from uncertainty stress during the transition in China from the COVID-19 epidemic to sporadic infection

“…According to SCM, COVID-19 is a strong stimulus that plausibly induces people to perceive high risk of infection which could lead to severe mental and behavior problems [ 3 ]. Many studies found that the potential to contract a highly lethal disease, such as COVID-19, can overwhelm people emotionally and physically, and induce strong mental and behavioral responses [ 4 , 5 , 7 , 33 , 34 ]. Sleep, emotional, and lifestyle problems are common manifestation of mental and behavioral problems [ 35 ].…”

Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Coupling and Coordination of Cultural Tourism and Objective Well-Being in Western China

“…Research on the OWB of residents mainly focuses on the relationship between cultural ecosystem service value [34,35], medical treatment [36], and leisure transportation [37] in nature reserves. The study of OWB is mainly based on external indicators that reflect residents' objective economic and social living conditions, such as relative income [38,39], expenditure structure [40], employment status [41], physical health indicators [42], social security [43], and other aspects. Among other factors, education, entertainment, aesthetics, and escapism promote well-being [44], mainly in the process of tourism consumption [45], which can better promote the quality of life and happiness of residents.…”