Poster #106 - The Mediating Effect of Self-Regulation in the Association between Poverty and Child Weight: A Systematic Review

• In Event: 1-005 - Poster Session 01
  In Poster Session: PS 01 Section - Health, Growth, Injury

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Self-regulation (SR) deficits have been proposed as a potential contributor to child overweight/obesity, a public health concern that disproportionately affects children in poverty. Although poverty is known to influence SR, SR has not typically been considered as a potential mechanism in the association between poverty and child obesity. The aim of the project is to review the current literature to determine whether SR is a viable mechanism in the relationship between child poverty and later risk for overweight/obesity. The systematic review will summarize literature and associated effect sizes from longitudinal studies in three related areas, with the aim of testing the strength of associations between: 1) poverty and later child weight, 2) poverty and later child SR, and 3) SR and later weight.
Methods: Studies were included in the systematic review if they were longitudinal and focused on children. The review included studies that contained some index of income and/or financial strain at the family or neighborhood level. SR, broadly defined, included constructs like executive functioning, inhibitory control, and impulsivity, using both observational and questionnaire measures. Observational SR measures were categorized as “hot” or “cool” based on evaluation of the SR domain each task intended to assess. To examine possible differences in the strength of associations depending on developmental stage, age periods were categorized as follows: Early Childhood (0-5), Middle Childhood (6-11), and Adolescence (12-18). Study effect sizes will be standardized and aggregated to determine the strength of associations in each pathway (poverty and SR, SR and weight, and poverty and weight) and to test whether the strength of relationships differs depending on individual aspects of studies (e.g., age of poverty exposure, hot versus cool SR measure).
Results: Preliminary findings, based on a review of approximately one-half of studies, suggest that poverty in childhood is longitudinally associated with higher BMI. Exposure to different indices of poverty was consistently associated with low SR, with most studies focusing on “cool,” executive functioning-based measures of SR. Nearly all studies found that early SR predicted later child weight, with most studies focusing on “hot” (e.g., impulsivity and delay of gratification) rather than “cool” SR measures in relation to weight. Preliminary findings did not support the hypothesis that early childhood-specific poverty is detrimental for weight outcomes. There was some evidence that effects of both poverty and SR on weight are already visible in early childhood. Few studies tested an SR-promoting intervention on BMI, but none found evidence that SR training reduces weight.
Discussion: The conceptualization and measurement of SR varied across literatures and made it difficult to determine whether SR can feasibly connect poverty and child obesity. Preliminary evidence provides some, albeit limited, support for the validity of a model in which SR mediates the relationship between poverty and overweight/obesity risk. Although SR may be a promising potential target for obesity intervention for low-income children, additional research on how SR affects risk for obesity is crucial, especially based on the lack of success of the limited number of SR-promoting interventions for reducing children’s weight.

Authors

• Kate Adis Hails, University of Pittsburgh
  Presenting Author

• Yiyao Zhou, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author

• Daniel S. Shaw, University of Pittsburgh
  Non-Presenting Author