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. 2024 Jul:270:114012.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2024.114012. Epub 2024 Mar 15.

Reported Intergenerational Transmission of Parent Weight Talk and Links with Child Health and Wellbeing

Jerica M Berge  1 , Vivienne M Hazzard  2 , Amanda Trofholz  3 , Anna Hochgraf  2 , Lisa Zak-Hunter  3 , Laura Miller  3
Affiliations

Reported Intergenerational Transmission of Parent Weight Talk and Links with Child Health and Wellbeing

Jerica M Berge et al. J Pediatr. 2024 Jul.

Abstract

Objectives: To examine if intergenerational transmission of parent weight talk occurs, the contextual factors prompting weight talk, and whether parent weight talk is associated with child weight, dietary intake, psychosocial outcomes, and food parenting practices.

Study design: Children aged 5-9 years and their families (n = 1307) from 6 racial and ethnic groups (African-American, Hispanic, Hmong, Native American, Somali/Ethiopian, White) were recruited for a longitudinal cohort study through primary care clinics in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota from 2016 through 2019. Parents filled out surveys at 2 time points, 18 months apart. Adjusted regression models examined associations of interest.

Results: Intergenerational transmission of parent weight talk was observed. In addition, significant associations were found between parent engagement in weight talk and higher weight status and poorer psychosocial outcomes in children 18 months later. Parent engagement in weight talk was also associated with more restrictive food parenting practices 18 months later.

Conclusions: Parents' exposure to weight talk as children increased the likelihood of engaging in weight talk with their own children and had harmful associations over time with parent restrictive feeding practices, child weight, and psychosocial wellbeing in children. Health care providers may want to consider both modeling positive health-focused conversations and educating parents about the potential harmful and long-lasting consequences of engaging in weight talk with their children.

Keywords: dietary intake; food parenting; obesity; psychosocial wellbeing; weight conversations.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose.

Figures

Figure 1:
Figure 1:
Contextual factors for when parents talk about weight with their children, overall and by household race and ethnicity (p-values represent results of omnibus tests for racial/ethnic differences; each unique letter [a, b, c] indicates a subset of racial/ethnic groups for whom endorsement of weight talk in that context does not differ significantly at p < .05).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Contextual factors for why parents talk about weight with their children, overall and by household race and ethnicity (p-values represent results of omnibus tests for racial/ethnic differences; each unique letter [a, b, c, d, e] indicates a subset of racial/ethnic groups for whom endorsement of weight talk in that context does not differ significantly at p < .05).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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