Intergenerational Transmission of Fear: The role of low income black mothers' experiences of violence and its impact on adolescent black girls' outdoor play

Introduction Increased national public health attention has been placed on childhood obesity and physical inactivity. Young black girls, particularly those who reside in inner cities, are less physically active and have higher rates of obesity than their white and non-urban counterparts. Conventional wisdom suggests that the explanation for the growing rate of obesity and physical inactivity among black girls is due to black mothers' reluctance to allow their young girls outside to play, but little attention has been paid on how mothers' personal experience of violence coupled with concentrated poverty and crime influence these decisions.

Methods Taken from a larger study of black urban mothers living in a high crime neighborhood in Newark, New Jersey, this study examines the impact of mothers'(N=22) experience of sexual and neighborhood violence on their decisions about daughters' (ages 10-13) outdoor play.

Results A significant number of mothers' had adverse childhood and adult histories of sexual and physical violence (17 witnessed neighborhood violence during childhood; 22 witnessed neighborhood violence as adults; 8 physically assaulted as children; 5 sexually assaulted as a child; 20 feared sexual assault). All mothers (N=22) were fearful of neighborhood crime and thus restricted their daughters from outdoors play.

Discussion Concentrated poverty coupled with urban black mothers' history of violence may be important contributors to physical inactivity and childhood obesity among inner-city black girls.