A Longitudinal Analysis of Maternal Depression and its Associations with Child Overweight and Health Care Use

As the primary caregivers, mothers play an important role in children's development, and maternal depression may affect children's health through parenting practices. This study examined the associations between maternal depression and child food consumption and overweight, and the extent to which these associations are moderated by children's health care use. Data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a nationally representative study of children from birth through kindergarten entry, were used (N = 10,200). Measures of mothers' mental health, children's height and weight, children's food consumption, and other child and family characteristics were collected at five waves from 9 months of age to kindergarten entry using parent surveys, direct child assessments, and observations of the home. At each wave, between 17% and 20% of mothers were categorized as moderately or severely depressed, and 29% to 32% of children were considered overweight. Results from both ordinary least squares and within-child fixed effects models, controlling for background characteristics, indicate that maternal depression is negatively associated with their children's consumption of healthy foods, and positively associated with their children's consumption of unhealthy foods. Further, children's eating habits improve when their mothers' mental health improves and worsen when their mothers exhibit depressive symptoms. However, maternal depression is not associated with standardized measures of child BMI or obesity. Moreover, there was no evidence that the number of well-child doctor visits moderated the associations between maternal depression and children's eating habits. Findings have implications for clinical and policy interventions designed to improve young children's nutrition.