Poster #106 - Factors Predicting Low-Income, Latina Mothers’ Underestimation of Preschool Children’s Weight Status

• In Event: 1-169 - Poster Session 04
  In Poster Session: PS 04 Section - Health, Growth, Injury

Integrative Statement

Childhood obesity remains prevalent within the United States, with currently higher rates of obesity among Hispanic-origin preschool children. Parents play a crucial role in the risk of overweight and obesity for their child, because they regulate their child’s nutrition and health behaviors. Because many mothers of preschool children underestimate their child’s weight status, an accurate understanding of children’s weight status is likely important for promoting healthy growth.

Although research shows that parents, regardless of their ethnicity, tend to underestimate the weight status of young children (see Lundahl, Kidwell, & Nelson, 2014 for a meta-analysis), many have argued that this may be particularly true for low-income, Latina mothers (Huang et al., 2007; Lindsay, Sussner, Greaney, & Peterson, 2011; Reifsnider et al., 2006). Researchers have attributed this tendency to cultural beliefs such as the attitudes that food is love, that a chubby baby is a healthy baby, that a thin body size may reflect illness or poor parenting, and that extra body fat may protect children against disease (Crawford et al., 2004; Lindsay et al., 2011; Reifsnider et al., 2006).

Despite the tendency of Latina mothers to underestimate their children’s weight status, it is likely that there are significant individual differences in this tendency. However, few studies have examined some of the factors associated with underestimation in low-income, Latina mothers. By identifying these factors, it will be possible to identify mothers whose children are at greatest risk for obesity, and also inform childhood obesity prevention programs.

In this study of 186 low-income, Latina mothers of preschool children in a large urban area in the South, five predictors of mothers’ perceptions of their child’s weight status and their concern about their child’s weight were examined: child gender, maternal body mass index (BMI) status, maternal educational status, maternal generational status and maternal acculturation. Accuracy of maternal perceptions was assessed by comparing mothers’ responses to the perceived child weight scale of the Child Feeding Questionnaire (Birch et al., 2001) to the child’s measured BMI percentile; concern about child weight was measured with a scale from the same questionnaire. Maternal acculturation was assessed with Bi-Dimensional Acculturation Scale (BAS) (Marin & Gamba, 1996).

Results showed that mothers with a higher BMI status were more likely to underestimate, and had more concern for, their child’s weight status. Mothers with higher levels of educational status were less likely to underestimate, and showed less concern for, their child’s weight status. Mothers born in the United States were less concerned over their child’s weight status. When all of the predictors were combined into multiple regressions, maternal underestimation of their child’s weight status was predicted by two variables (i.e. maternal BMI status and maternal educational status) and maternal concern for their child’s weight status was predicted by maternal BMI status. Implications for the development of childhood obesity and for the design of programs to prevent it are considered.

Authors

• Jackelyn Hidalgo, Washington State University
  Presenting Author

• Thomas G Power, Washington State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Orlet Fisher, Temple University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Teresia M O'Connor, Baylor College of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sheryl O Hughes, Baylor College of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author