Child Obesity and Parental Concern: Mismatch, Feeding Behaviors, and Parenting Styles Nicole Lee Moore, Laura Hubbs-Tait, Robert E. Larzelere, Eric Ray Baker, Tay S. Kennedy,

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Child Obesity and Parental Concern Mismatch,
Feeding Behaviors, and Parenting Styles Nicole
Lee Moore, Laura Hubbs-Tait, Robert E. Larzelere,
Eric Ray Baker, Tay S. Kennedy, Glade
L.TophamDepartments of Human Development and
Family Science and Nutritional ScienceOklahoma
State University

• Research hypotheses
• Hypothesis 1 Mismatch between parental concern
  about child overweight and actual child weight,
  with parental concern lagging behind child
  obesity and overweight.
• Hypothesis 2 Parental feeding behaviors that
  could increase child unhealthy eating would be
  linked to parental concern about child
  overweight.
• Hypothesis 3 Restrictive general parenting style
  that could result in child emotion-based eating
  would be linked to parental concern about child
  overweight, but responsive and permissive style
  would not.
• Hypothesis 4 Permissive parenting style and
  inappropriate feeding behaviors would increase
  the odds of childrens being obese or overweight
• Hypothesis 5 Restrictive parenting style and
  feeding behaviors would predict fall to spring
  gains in preschool child weight.

ABSTRACT Study objective was to evaluate
relations among parental concern about child
overweight, parenting styles, specific feeding
practices, and actual child weight. Participants
were 128 (70 boys and 58 girls) children in rural
Head Start and their parents. Measures included
Parental Behavior Questionnaire Head Start
(PBQ-HS), Demographic Information Questionnaire,
Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ), Parent Food
Socialization Questionnaire, and child
anthropometric measurements. Parental concern
about child overweight did lag behind child
actual weight in that 36.4 of parents of obese
children were not concerned about their
childrens weight, and 65.2 of parents of
overweight children were not concerned.
Restrictive parenting style, external food focus,
rationale, and perceived responsibility predicted
parental concern about child weight after the
link between child body mass index (BMI) and
concern was controlled. Odds of child obesity
were associated with permissive parenting style,
Exp(b) 2.84 (95 CI of 1.06, 7.60), P .038,
and discouraging feeding practices, Exp(b) 3.77
(95 CI of 1.35, 10.55), P .011. Above and
beyond these two parenting variables, parental
concern about child overweight was associated
with an increase in the childs odds of being
obese, Exp(b) 2.02 (95 CI of 1.41, 2.90), P
.0002. Regression analyses revealed greater
parental control of junk foods in the fall was
linked to decreases in BMI-z from fall to spring
(ß -.215), ?R2 .046, P .046. We conclude
that accelerating child weight in Oklahoma is
linked to parenting processes, lag between
parental concern and actual child weight,
inappropriate feeding behaviors, and restrictive
and permissive parenting styles.
Rationale Although the increase in child obesity
appears to have stabilized from 1999-2000 to
2005-2006, the percentage of 2- to
5-year-old-children with BMI gt 85th percentile
was recently reported to be 24.4 (Ogden et al,
2008). One explanation for the high rate of child
obesity is that parental concern about child
obesity and overweight lags behind actual child
weight. Implicit in this explanation is that
parents do not take steps quickly enough to halt
increases in child weight. There is need to
examine relationships among parental concern
about child overweight, general parenting style,
specific feeding practices, and actual child
weight.
Method Children Researchers evaluated child
anthropometry including height and
weight Heights and weights were then used to
calculate individual BMI, BMI percentile rankings
and BMI z-scores using the Epi-Info Software
program (release 4.3.0, 2006, CDC Atlanta GA).

• Participants
• 128 children (70 boys)
• Of 152 children, 150 had BMI gt 5th percentile in
  both fall and spring.
• 132 parents (88 return rate) answered
  questionnaires
• 58.5 White 20.3 Hispanic
• maternal education 20.8 high school dropout
  60.8 high school grad 18.4 college grad.

Definitions Obese BMI gt 95th
percentile Overweight BMI gt 85th
percentile Normal weight BMI lt 85th percentile

• Method - Parents
• Demographic Questionnaire
• Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ) Subscales
  perceived responsibility, overweight concern,
  control of junk foods (Birch et al. 2001)
• Parent Behavior Questionnaire Head Start
  (PBQ-HS) Subscales Active-responsive, passive-
  permissive, active-restrictive (Coolahan et al.,
  2002)
• Food Socialization Questionnaire - Subscales
  discouraging, external food focus, parent
  rationale (Cullen et al. 2000)