Mother vs. father differences in risk factors for child overweight/obese

Background: Certain parental factors are associated with childhood obesity, such as parent weight and education. But little is known how the impact may differ for mothers vs. fathers.

Methods: Data from the 2008,2012 Ohio Family Health Survey.  Overweight/obese defined by CDC. Weight data available for children aged 10-17. Child surveys had data for 1 adult. Those with non-parent adult respondent were excluded. Data(child, parent) included sociodemographics, health insurance, various measures of health status(physical/mental). Stratified logistic and modified poisson regressions for child overweight/obese were run with parent factors as study variables, adjusting for child characteristics. Analyses accounted for complex survey design.

Results: 7,323 children met criteria. Children with mother respondent were more often(p<.05): African-American, overweight/obese, Medicaid, low income, metropolitan county, poor physical and mental health, asthma, limited ability to do things, major medical costs in past year. Mothers tended to be less(p<.05): educated, overweight/obese. Mothers were more often(p<.05): non-married, poor physical and mental health, uninsured. Association with child overweight/obese: mother overweight(RR=1.40;p<.0001) but not father overweight(RR=0.90;p=.5290), mother obese(RR=1.82;p<.0001) and father obese(RR=1.29;p=.0376), father 4-yr degree(RR=0.64;p=.0004) but mother 4-yr degree only trended(RR=0.85;p=.0766), father widowed(RR=1.69;p=.0243) and mother non-married trended(RR=1.14;p=.0960).

Discussion: In this study, the biggest predictors of child overweight/obese was mother’s weight, father’s education and widowed father. Analysis of data with only 1 parent, as is common in large surveillance studies, needs to distinguish mother vs. father. These results may also inform child obesity interventions. Reasons for differential impact of parental factors needs further exploration.