200850 Socio-economic and racial/ethnic disparities in adolescent girls' weight-related family environments

Wednesday, November 11, 2009: 8:45 AM

Katherine W. Bauer, MS , Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, PhD, MPH, RD , Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Jayne A. Fulkerson, PhD , School of Nursing, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Peter Hannan, MStat , Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Mary Story, PhD, RD , Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN
Background: African American and Latina adolescent girls and girls of low socio-economic status report less physical activity, poorer dietary intake, and have a higher prevalence of overweight and obesity than white girls and girls of high socio-economic status. The family environment has been associated with adolescents' weight and weight-related behaviors. However, little is known about how factors in the family environment of relevance for physical activity, dietary intake and weight status differ by girls' race/ethnicity and socio-economic status.

Methods: A diverse sample of adolescent girls who participated in New Moves, a school-based obesity prevention intervention targeting sedentary girls, and one of their parents (n=254) completed surveys assessing socio-demographic characteristics and family environment factors, including parental modeling of, and support for, weight-related behaviors and family resources such as exercise equipment and healthy food availability. Multivariate regression models were developed to estimate independent associations between families' socio-demographic characteristics and the family environment.

Results: Results indicate that parental education is positively associated with several family environment factors including modeling of physical activity (p<.01) and family meal frequency (p<.05). Many factors in the family environment varied by girls' race/ethnicity including parental modeling of weight-related behaviors and the presence of a television in girls' bedrooms.

Conclusions: Racial, ethnic, and socio-economic differences in adolescent girls' family environments may contribute to the disparities observed in girls' weight status and weight-related behaviors. Interventions with a family-environment component may help improve physical activity and dietary behaviors among adolescents at high risk for obesity.

Learning Objectives:
Describe how factors in adolescents’ family environments may contribute to adolescents’ weight status, physical activity habits and dietary intake. Explain how adolescent girls’ family environments differ by adolescents’ socio-economic status and race/ethnicity.

Keywords: Adolescent Health, Obesity

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Current Doctoral Candidate in Epidemiology at the University of Minnesota. PI on study on which abstract is based. Received MS from the Harvard School of Public Health.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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