A Longitudinal Study of Parenting Style and Child Weight with Moderation by American Indian Ethnicity

SYNOPSIS

Objective: Early childhood weight predicts later weight, so there is need for longitudinal research to identify key factors in the development of childhood obesity, especially among vulnerable populations. Design: This study examines the links between parenting styles and child obesity across three waves (Mages = 6.90, 7.34, and 8.28 years) and the moderating factor of mother ethnicity in a sample of 356 children and their mothers (78.5% European American; 14.8% American Indian). Results: Growth curve SEM showed that high-permissive parenting predicted higher initial weight than the average permissive reference group and low permissive parenting group. Children of high authoritarian mothers began at a non-significantly different weight relative to the average authoritarian and low authoritarian reference groups, but later increased their weight, primarily from wave 1 to 2. An interaction between mother ethnicity and authoritative parenting was found for the autonomy granting subscale. Children of American Indian mothers with low levels of autonomy granting had the highest initial levels of weight compared to children of parents in the average and high autonomy granting reference groups and by wave 3 had an average increase close to the cutoff for being overweight. Conclusions: Parenting style appears to play a role in predicting child weight longitudinally, and this relation is moderated by the ethnicity of the child’s mother. This study is also the first to show measurement invariance in the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire among American Indian mothers.

ADDRESSES AND AFFILIATIONS

Julie M. Rutledge, School of Human Ecology, Louisiana Tech University, PO Box 3167, Ruston, LA 71272. E-mail: [email protected]. Amanda W. Harrist, Laura Hubbs-Tait, and Robert E. Larzelere are at Oklahoma State University; Glade L. Topham is at Kansas State University, Lenka H. Shriver is at University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and Taren Swindle is at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical Principles: The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. These guidelines include obtaining informed consent from human participants, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of human or animal participants, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data.

Funding: This research was supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 05545; Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science & Technology, Grant #HR07-044; Oklahoma Agricultural Experiment Station, Grant #2744; Oklahoma State University’s College of Human Sciences and College of Arts & Sciences; and the Bryan Close Professorship as well as the Mildred Trussell McGehee Endowed Professorship given to the first author.

Role of the Funders/Sponsors: None of the funders or sponsors of this research had any role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Acknowledgments: The authors would like thank the Families and Schools for Health schools and families because without them this research would not have been possible. The ideas and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone, and endorsement by the authors’ institutions or the funding agencies is not intended and should not be inferred.