Poster #94 - Interparental conflict in early childhood: prospective associations with obesity risk and parenting behaviors.

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Childhood obesity has major public health implications (Lobstein, Baur, & Uauy, 2004). Poor-quality interactions between mothers and young children (Anderson, 2011) and a lack of household routines (Anderson & Whitaker, 2010) have been linked to increased obesity risk. There is strong evidence that interparental conflict (IPC) exerts influence on a wide range of family processes including the quality of parent-child interactions (Zvara, 2015), household routines (Kerig, 2016), and emerging evidence linking IPC to obesity in young children (Boynton-Jarrett, 2010), such that greater IPC is related to elevated risk for child obesity. Understanding how these interrelated factors may increase risk for obesity are expected to refine and help target future intervention development.
Methods: We utilize data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) to: 1) understand the extent to which conflict between parents in early childhood is associated with prevalence of obesity at kindergarten-age; and 2) examine interparental conflict as a predictor of parenting behaviors and household routines that are themselves associated with obesity risk. ECLS-B is a nationally-representative cohort of 10,700 US children born in 2001. Assessments were conducted in children’s homes when they were infants (9 months), toddlers (24 months), preschool-aged, and entering kindergarten. We restricted our analyses to the sample of 7150 children who were living with both biological parents at 9 and 24 months of age.
Interparental conflict was assessed when the child was 9- and 24-months old using a 10 item self-report questionnaire. Mothers reported on the level of conflict with their spouses/partners around various issues (e.g., household chores, children, money, etc.) on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = never/hardly ever to 4 = often). Cronbach’s alpha for the 10 items was >.75 at each time point. We averaged the items and created quartiles of interparental conflict at each time period. At the 24-month assessment mothers were observed in a semi-structured play task with their toddlers. These interactions were videotaped and coded for maternal sensitivity, positive regard, and lack of intrusiveness (each rated 1-7) and then summed. Low maternal responsiveness was defined as the lowest quartile.
At 24-months Mothers additionally reported on whether they had a bedtime routine for their toddler, whether he/she was put to bed with a bottle, and the amount of television and videos the child watched on a typical weekday. At the Kindergarten assessment, Body mass index (weight in kg divided by squared height in meters) was calculated and obesity defined as a gender-specific BMI-for-age ≥95th percentile of the CDC growth reference (Kuczmarski, 2002).
Results: Sociodemographic characteristics of children living with both biological parents are displayed in Table 1. Maternal reported IPC in early childhood was associated with toddler behaviors except for screen-time (Table 2). However, both high and low levels of conflict were associated with higher prevalence of potentially obesigenic behaviors. Associations with the prevalence of obesity at age 5.5 years were similar but not statistically significant at P<.05. Additional analyses will explore potential mediation and moderation. 

Authors

• Bharathi Zvara, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Sarah E Anderson, The Ohio State University
  Non-Presenting Author