Parental weight changes as key predictors of child weight changes

Abstract

BackgroundParents are the key agents of behavioural changes in their children. This fact is as an important aspect of obesity treatment and prevention. The present study aims to evaluate the influence of parents who have gained or lost weight on their children’s weights and to examine parental and child patterns of weight changes from a baseline over a 14-year duration.MethodsWe performed a secondary analysis on the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS), an ongoing national prospective longitudinal cohort study in Indonesia. Height and weight measurements, information regarding parental education, maternal employment, household income, and residence were collected from children under five years old (n = 3,147) and their parents in 1993. Data were taken from the same individuals at different points in time, in 1997, 2000, and 2007.ResultsDuring each transition, the children of parents who gained weight had a significantly weights than did children of parents who lost weight. A mother’s positive weight change increased the chance of her pre-schooler’s or school-aged child’s positive weight change. However we found no such association between a father’s positive weight change and his child’s positive weight change.ConclusionsParental weight change is an independent predictor of child weight change. Positive weight change in the mother had a more dominant influence than did the father’s positive weight change. Future family-based obesity prevention and treatment programs should consider how best to include and engage mothers as a catalyst for the reduction of obesity-related risk factors in the long term.

Role of Parents in Body Mass Reduction in Children with Obesity—Adherence and Success of 1-Year Participation in an Intervention Program

“…However, not only children may lose weight while participating in such family-based interventions; body mass reduction may also be observed in parents [65], which in turn may predict favorable outcomes in children [66]. Some authors even indicate that parental weight changes are the key predictors of the weight changes in children [67]. Based on the results presented in the abovementioned studies, it can be emphasized that evaluating parental body mass in body mass reduction programs is important, as the excessive body mass of parents (maybe not recognized by themselves) may be related to the lack of recognition of their child's excessive body mass and lack of adherence and support to such programs.…”

Digital Weight Loss Intervention for Parents of Children Being Treated for Obesity: A Prospective Cohort Feasibility Trial (Preprint)

“…Yet, parent-only interventions have been effective in in the treatment of childhood overweight/obesity [18][19][20]. Indeed, parent weight change is a strong predictor of child weight change [21,22], in that a one unit reduction in parent BMI is associated with a 0.26 reduction child BMI after participation in behavioral weight loss program [23]. Since child weight status is associated with parent weight status [24][25][26], parental treatment for weight loss may indirectly reduce obesity in the child by impacting the family's shared environment and through parental role modeling of healthy behaviors.…”

The association between parental overweight and obesity before pregnancy and the development of offspring overweight and obesity in childhood, adolescence and young adulthood

“…Most of the cross-sectional studies have demonstrated this association-primarily in childhood [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53], while some have reported this association during adolescence [43,54,55]. For example, a large population-based cross-sectional study by Whitaker et al reported that the risk of childhood obesity was predicted by having obese parents with odds of 22.3 (95%CI: 10.3-48.4) compared to children who had normalweight parents [56].…”

“…These behaviours may be indirectly transmitted from parents to their offspring through familial shared environments. Previous studies have showed that changes in parental nutritional status have significant influences on the changes in offspring nutritional status [53][54][55]. However, these studies used BMI alone rather than more detailed measures for estimation of adiposity and follow-up in the long-term overall lifestyle changes of parents and offspring.…”

“…Most studies, including cross-sectional [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41], longitudinal [42][43][44][45][46], birth-cohort [10,[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60], and case-control designs [61,62], have consistently found that parental OW/OB are strongly associated with offspring OW/OB. When both parents are OW/OB, the risk of OW/OB offspring is greater than when one parent is OW/OB [10,48,54,63].…”