Low Peer Social Preference in First Grade Predicts Depression and Loneliness From First through Third Grade and Child Obesity Strengthens This Loneliness Effect in Third Grade

• In Event: Peer Exclusion in Childhood and Adolescence: Multi-level Mechanisms and Risk for Depression

Abstract

Being disliked by peers is a risk for later socioemotional problems including loneliness and depression. Decades of research on classroom social hierarchies and child characteristics have made it clear that, besides being aggressive or immature, a significant reason young children are disliked is because they are perceived by classmates as being “different”. Obesity is one of the most highly stigmatized forms of being different among children. Preschool children prefer thin to overweight figures in drawings, and obese elementary-age children report unsatisfactory peer relations including ostracism. Yet very few studies have used peer reports to study the social context of obesity in elementary classrooms.

The current study uses multi-informant data to examine two risk factors for later loneliness and depression: Being disliked and being overweight. We explore whether low social preference and obesity make independent or overlapping contributions to these adjustment problems.

The original sample was 1139 children from 127 classes in 29 rural U.S. schools. The current study uses data from children followed from 1st-4th grades. Children were mostly European-American (72%) or Native American (19%).

Peer sociometric interviews were conducted approximately 3 months into 1st grade (Wave 1). Child interviews, anthropometric (height, weight) assessments, and teacher questionnaires were completed across four waves: The beginning of 1st grade (Wave 1), the end of 1st grade (Wave 2), and the end of 2nd (Wave 3), and 3rd grades (Wave 4). In Wave 1, peer reports were used to compute Social Preference (standardized “like” minus “dislike” score), and anthropometric measures were used to compute children’s BMIz (Body Mass Index standardized for age and sex). In Waves 2-4, child self-reports were used to compute Loneliness (LSDQ subscale), and teacher-reports used to compute child Depression (BASC subscale).

Multiple regression analyses examined the independent and interactive contribution of Social Preference and BMIz (which were significantly related, r = -.12, p = .002) to the prediction of later Depression and Loneliness. Regression models for Depression were significant at each wave (R2s = .075, .073, .089, Fs = 28.14, 20.69, 21.93, ps < .001 for Waves 2, 3, and 4, respectively), as were models for Loneliness (R2s = .027, .048, .050, Fs = 9.44, 14.47, 12.82, ps < .001). For each model (Waves 2-4), the independent contribution of Wave 1 Social Preference was significant, but the contribution of BMIz was not. In the model predicting Wave 4 (3rd grade) Loneliness, however, the interaction between Social Preference and BMIz was significant (ß = -.071, t = -.199, p < .05), such that the higher BMIz was at low levels of Social Preference (i.e., the more disliked the overweight children were), the lonelier they were at in 4th grade. Further analyses will model trajectories across years.

Our findings suggest that, while weight problems and peer dislike go hand-in-hand in first grade, and the combination of being overweight and disliked predicted later loneliness, it is being disliked by classmates at the beginning of the school career that appears to set children on a trajectory toward elevated risk of depression.

Authors

• Amanda W. Harrist, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater
  Presenting Author

• Glade Topham, Kansas State University

• Laura Hubbs-Tait, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Lenka Shriver, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

• Clarissa M Corkins, Oklahoma State University - Stillwater

• Taren Swindle, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences