Abstract
Background/Objective: Prior research suggests an association between parental experiencing of 1 or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and increased risk for overweight/obesity in children. However, the pathways through which parental experiences of ACEs lead to child weight are unclear. Methods: Participants were parent and child dyads from racially/ethnically diverse and low-income households in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2015. Parents completed an online survey regarding their own adverse experiences in childhood, their height and weight, parenting practices, and mental health. Child height and weight were obtained from electronic medical records. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the extent to which parent mental health and parenting practices mediate associations between parental ACEs and child body mass index (BMI) percentile. Results: The parent mental health pathway was statistically significant in explaining the intergenerational transmission of parental ACEs to child weight. Parent ACEs were positively associated with low parent mental health, parent low mental health was correlated with higher parent BMI > 25, and parent overweight was positively related to higher child BMI percentile. Conclusions: Study findings suggest that intervening on parent low mental health may be a key factor in reducing the intergenerational transmission between parental ACEs and child weight.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 39-50 |
Number of pages | 12 |
Journal | Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine |
Volume | 36 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Funding: Research is supported by grant number R01 HL126171 and R01 HL156994 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (PI: Jerica Berge). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute or the National Institutes of Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 American Board of Family Medicine. All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Adverse Childhood Experiences
- Body Mass Index
- Childhood Obesity
- Mental Health
- Minnesota
- Parenting
- Structural Equation Modeling
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Journal Article
- Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural