Health-related Parenting among U.S. Families and Young Children’s Physical Health

• In Event: 070 - Section on Children and Youth Paper Session. Social Contexts of Children’s Well-Being

Abstract

Parenting is comprised of a constellation of behaviors, yet investigations of the link between parenting and children’s health typically focus on singular behaviors. Thus, the patterns of health-related parenting among U.S. families, associations between these patterns and young children’s physical health, and prevalence of such patterns among different socioeconomic groups remain unknown. Applying latent class analysis to the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (n=8,550), we find six patterns of parenting that oftentimes include advantageous and adverse behaviors. Children with high levels of screen time had the worst overall health; children in the class characterized by highest consumptions of food and amounts of outdoor play had highest odds of obesity. Children of less educated mothers and Black children were more likely to belong to both classes than the class associated with the best child health, but membership was not distinguished by Hispanicity and only by family income for the latter class.

Authors

• Jennifer March Augustine, University of South Carolina

• Kate C. Prickett, The University of Chicago

• Rachel Tolbert Kimbro, Rice University