Familial influences on the use of controlling feeding practices with adolescents

Sex difference in the relationship between environmental unpredictability and depressive symptom in Chinese adolescents: The chain mediating role of sense of control and fast life history strategies

BACKGROUND

Adolescents are at a high risk of depressive symptom. A substantial body of literature indicates that early environmental unpredictability (EU) significantly affects the likelihood of developing depressive symptom. However, only a few studies have focused on the mediating mechanisms underlying this relationship. Based on life history (LH) theory and the adaptive calibration model, this study constructed a chain-mediating model to examine whether the association between EU and depressive symptom among Chinese adolescents is mediated by sense of control and fast life history strategies.

METHODS

In total, 1838 Chinese adolescents (47.8 % women, mean age = 13.17 ± 0.99 years) participated in this study and responded to self-report measures of EU, fast LH strategies, sense of control, and depressive symptom.

RESULTS

(1) There were significant correlations between EU, sense of control, fast LH strategies, and depressive symptom. (2) After controlling for the effects of sex, age and socioeconomic status, EU still had a significant positive effect on depressive symptom. (3) Adolescent depressive symptom was partly influenced by EU through three different pathways: the mediating role of sense of control, the mediating role of fast LH strategies, and the chain-mediating role of both sense of control and fast LH strategies. (4) There are significant gender differences in the above chain mediation models.

LIMITATIONS

The analysis is cross-sectional, which limits causal inference.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of risk factors for adolescent depressive symptom. The chain-mediating effect of a sense of control and fast LH strategies plays an important role in the occurrence of depressive symptom.

Maternal Stress Moderates the Relationship of Food Insufficiency with Body Mass Index Trajectories from Childhood to Early Adulthood among U.S. Rural Youth

Background: Findings on the relationships between household food insufficiency (HFI), maternal stress, and youth body mass index (BMI) are mixed, possibly due to cross-sectional study designs and measurement issues. Furthermore, little is known about how childhood exposure to HFI and maternal stress influences BMI into young adulthood among rural youth. We aimed to determine the independent and moderating relationships of HFI and maternal perceived stress on youth BMI trajectories from age 9 to 24 years. Methods: We used longitudinal data from rural New York youth (n = 341). At youth age 9 years, parents reported HFI using a reliable one-item measure, and mothers responded to the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS; range: 0-40). BMI was calculated (kg/m²) from objective measures of height and weight at 9, 13, 17, and 24 years. Multivariate random-intercept trajectory models estimated the relationships of HFI and PSS on BMI trajectories (p < 0.05 for main effects, p < 0.10 for interactions). Results: At age 9 years, 16.4% experienced HFI and mean (standard deviation) BMI and PSS were 18.4 (3.6) kg/m² and 7.7 (2.9), respectively. HFI and PSS were not associated with BMI trajectories (p = 0.18, p = 0.64, respectively), but their interaction was significant (p < 0.01). Each one-unit increase in PSS was associated with 0.6 (0.2) kg/m² higher mean change in BMI trajectories for youth in food-insufficient, compared with food-sufficient, households. Conclusions: Higher levels of maternal stress in food-insufficient households may lead to greater increases in BMI from childhood to young adulthood. Public health interventions should simultaneously address parental stress and quality food access among low-income rural households.

Nutritional problems in childhood and adolescence: a narrative review of identified disparities

To inform programmes and policies that promote health equity, it is essential to monitor the distribution of nutritional problems among young individuals. Common nutritional problems include overall low diet quality, the underconsumption and overconsumption of certain dietary components, unhealthy meal and snack patterns, problematic feeding practices and disordered eating. The objective of the present narrative review was to summarise recent evidence of disparities among US children (2-19 years) according to age, sex, socio-economic status, ethnicity/race and rural-urban location. Searches in PubMed® and MEDLINE® were completed to identify peer-reviewed research studies published between January 2009 and January 2019. Findings from the ninety-nine reviewed studies indicate adolescent females, young individuals from lower socio-economic households and individuals who identify as non-Hispanic Black race are particularly vulnerable populations for whom targeted strategies should be developed to address evidence of increased risk with regards to multiple aspects of nutritional wellbeing. Limitations of the existing evidence relate to the accuracy of self-reported dietary data; the need for consistent definitions of disordered eating; the focus on individual dietary components v. patterns; the complexities of categorising socio-economic status, ethnicity/race, and rural and urban areas; and the cross-sectional, observational nature of most research designs. There is an urgent need for research to address these limitations and fill a large gap in evidence on rural-urban differences in nutritional problems. It will further be important for future studies to build greater understanding of how nutritional problems cluster among population groups.

Parental restrictive feeding with Latinx adolescents: Examining the role of adolescent effortful control

The objective of this study was to test if youth effortful control, a general process of self-regulation that is rooted in temperament, uniquely predicts maternal restrictive feeding with Latinx adolescents above and beyond demographic/contextual factors, prior use of restrictive feeding, and common markers of obesity-proneness. The study sample consisted of Latinx fifth and sixth graders and their mothers residing in the Midwestern U.S. (N =  97 dyads). Effortful control, maternal restrictive feeding, demographic/contextual factors, and markers of obesity proneness were measured across two waves of data collection approximately one year apart. Results demonstrated an inverse relation between effortful control and maternal restrictive feeding after controlling for Time 1 demographic/contextual factors, maternal BMI, maternal restrictive feeding, youth BMI z-score, and perceived youth weight. Future directions include testing for the presence of an ironic feedback process such that Latinx mothers' attempts to overcome deficits in their children's self-regulation skills through restrictive feeding may be inadvertently maintaining the problem.