Food Insecurity and Children's Problem Behaviors: The Mediating Role of Parental Relationship Quality and Parenting Stress.

OBJECTIVE: Food insecurity, identified as a critical stressor for many families, can directly and indirectly influence children's development through interparental relationships and parenting. This study examines how food insecurity relates to children's problem behaviors and the mediating roles of interparental relationship quality and parenting stress. It also investigates the association between parents' perception of relationship quality and both their own and their partner's parenting stress. METHOD: The study included 2095 children from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study. The actor partner interdependence model was used to explore the actor and partner influence of relationship quality on parents' parenting stress. To examine the association pathways from food insecurity to children's problem behaviors, a structural equation model was conducted. RESULTS: Results suggest that fathers' perception of couple relationship quality predicted both their own and their partner's parenting stress while mothers' perception of couple relationship quality only predicted their own, but not fathers', parenting stress. In the positive association between food insecurity and children's problem behaviors, there was a serial mediation through mothers' perception of relationship quality and mothers' parenting stress. In addition, food insecurity was negatively correlated with mothers' perception of relationship quality, but not with that of fathers. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the pathway from food insecurity to children's problem behaviors through mothers' perceptions of interparental relationship quality and parenting stress. Results provide support for the family stress theory and offer valuable insights for the formulation of potential prevention and intervention programs.

Temperament and emotional overeating: the mediating role of caregiver response to children's negative emotions.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the mediating effects of caregiver responses to a child's negative emotions on the associations between infant temperament and emotional overeating in preschool children. Method: A sample of 358 children and their caregivers enrolled in the STRONG Kids 2 (SK2) birth cohort study (N = 468) provided data for this analysis. Caregivers completed questionnaires assessing child temperament at 3 months, caregiver response to negative emotions at 18 months, and child emotional overeating at 36 months. Structural Equation Modeling was conducted using the lavaan package in RStudio to test hypothesized models examining whether the relations between early temperament and subsequent emotional eating were mediated by caregiver responses to a child's emotions. Results: Findings revealed that infant temperamental orienting/regulation predicted the later development of emotional overeating through supportive caregiver responses to a child's negative emotions. Lower levels of orienting/regulation were associated with greater emotional overeating, explained by less supportive caregiver responses to the child's emotions. Moreover, infant surgency had a positive direct influence on emotional overeating at 36 months. Both supportive and non-supportive caregiver responses to a child's negative emotions had significant direct influences on emotional overeating. Conclusion: The results highlight the importance of caregiver response to a child's negative emotions as a mediator between infant temperament and emotional overeating in preschool children. Intervention strategies can be implemented to support caregivers in adopting supportive responses to their child's negative emotions to promote healthy eating behaviors from early childhood. Future studies are needed to explore these pathways of influences throughout child development.

Protective role of family mealtime frequency against disordered eating behaviors: Racial and ethnic differences.

Family mealtimes have been recognized for their positive effect on child and adolescent health outcomes. Frequent family meals have been shown to have protective effects in reducing disordered eating behaviors, but the variability of these effects across different racial and ethnic backgrounds has been less explored. To address the gap, the current study utilizes a sample of 33,417 families with children (ages 6-17) in the United States who participated in the 2022 National Surveys of Children's Health (NSCH). Logistic regressions were conducted to examine the association between family mealtime frequency and the manifestation of disordered eating across youth from diverse racial/ethnic backgrounds. Our findings revealed that frequent family mealtimes are associated with a lower risk of engaging in disordered eating behaviors in youth. However, there were disparities in the associations between family mealtime frequency and the prevalence of disordered eating behaviors among children from different racial/ethnic backgrounds. Youth who never participated in family mealtimes were at a greater risk of engaging in disordered eating behaviors among those identifying as non-Hispanic Black or of 'other' racial groups. In youth identifying with multiple races, the frequency of family was not associated with the odds of disordered eating behaviors. The results provide insights into the nuanced influence of family mealtime frequency on disordered eating based on diverse racial/ethnic groups. This highlights the need for future studies to identify factors associated with racial/ethnic identities that may contribute to disordered eating behaviors in youth to identify the unique needs and challenges faced by families in leveraging the protective effect of family mealtimes.

Association of parents' work-related stress and children's socioemotional competency: Indirect effects of family mealtimes.

Family mealtimes play an important role in promoting the physical and psychological well-being of children. However, parents' work-related stress may impact their ability to participate in frequent family mealtimes. In dual-earner families, gendered norms may also influence parents' shared responsibility to participate in mealtimes with their children. Prior studies have primarily focused on the mother's role in feeding children, while the father's participation has been relatively unexplored. We used a sample of dual-earner families consisting of heterosexual married couples with children in the United States who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort to investigate how stressors at work may affect the mother's and father's participation in family mealtimes and, in turn, related to the child's socioemotional development. We tested the associations between the mother's and father's work-related stress on the child's socioemotional competency from age two through preschool (age 4-5). We examined the direct and indirect effects of parents' work-related stress on child socioemotional competency through their involvement in mealtimes. The results indicate a negative direct association between the mother's job/financial dissatisfaction and the child's socioemotional competency. The father's job dissatisfaction had an adverse impact on children in terms of socioemotional competency, partially explained by the father participating less often in family mealtimes. Fathers' job/financial dissatisfaction had a negative influence on children's socioemotional competency, even with an increase in the mothers' participation in family mealtimes in the absence of the fathers. The findings emphasize the importance of fathers' involvement in mealtimes above and beyond mothers' involvement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

The effect of adverse childhood experiences on family mealtime frequency: Examining racial and ethnic differences.

Eating meals as a family is associated with multiple positive nutritional and emotional outcomes for parents and children. Although the benefits of mealtimes extend to all families, families of color and those in poverty face disproportional barriers to eating frequent meals together. No previous study has properly attended to the heterogeneity of racial and ethnic groups in the United States when assessing mealtime barriers. Focusing on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), our analyses tested whether an increased number of adversities, and particular types of adversities, were associated with a decrease in mealtime frequency for different racial/ethnic families in the United States. Utilizing a large, nationally representative sample of families (n = 59,963), results showed that higher cumulative ACE scores reduced the number of days a family eats meals together in a given week. For specific ACE items, seven out of nine individual ACE items were associated with decreased mealtimes (excluding parental death and racial discrimination). Stratification resulted in varied associations between accumulated and individual ACE items and mealtime frequency depending on racial/ethnic group. Asian families in particular had greater odds of infrequent meals than other families, while Native American, Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander, and other racial/ethnic families were unaffected by increased ACEs. Results indicate that a family's accumulation of multiple adversities may impede mealtimes by either forcing families to prioritize the management of other stressors or by depleting the physical and mental resources needed to establish a routine. Focusing on family cultural traditions as protective factors may be an area of future intervention. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Infant temperament and mealtime distractions as predictors of preschool Children's bite speed during family mealtime.

Eating behaviors are shaped at an early age, persist into adulthood, and are implicated in the development of physical health outcomes, including obesity. Faster bite speed has been identified as an obesogenic eating behavior, prompting researchers to examine child and family factors associated with children's variability in bite speed. Child temperament, involving phenotypes of reactivity and regulation, and distractions in family food contexts are fruitful areas of investigation, but few studies have examined the interplay among these factors and their associations with bite speed. To address the gap in the literature, we examined relations between early child temperament, family mealtime distractions, and children's observed bite speed. Caregiver report of child temperament at 3 months was measured using the Infant Behavior Questionnaire Very Short Form - Revised. Child mealtime distractions and bite speed were assessed using family mealtime videos that were collected during home visits when children were 18-24 months of age (n = 109). Results revealed that children who were reported to be higher on orienting/regulation at 3 months, and who were more distracted during mealtimes at 18-24 months, had relatively slower bite speeds. No significant interactions were found. The findings from this correlational study inform further investigations into the implications of early temperament and food contexts for the development of eating behaviors implicated in obesity risk.

Influences of Child Temperament and Household Chaos on Preschoolers' Emotional Eating.

Background: Emotional eating has been linked to child temperament and family environment factors, such as household chaos. However, few studies have examined how child and home characteristics independently and together influence children's overeating and undereating in response to negative emotions. Objective: The current study examined associations among child temperament, household chaos, and emotional eating in children 18-24 months of age, and interaction effects were also tested. Methods: The study included an analysis sample of 371 families participating in the larger STRONG Kids2 longitudinal birth cohort study (N = 468). The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire was used to assess child temperament at 18 months, and the Confusion, Hubbub, and Order Scale was used to assess disorganization in the household at 24 months. Child emotional eating at 24 months was assessed using parental reports of the Child Eating Behavior Questionnaire. Results: Negative affectivity and household chaos were independently associated with child emotional overeating. Negative affectivity, effortful control, and household chaos were significantly associated with emotional undereating. No significant interactions were found. Conclusions: Child temperament and household environment independently influence emotional eating in young children, highlighting the need to consider these factors in early prevention. Longitudinal studies are warranted to determine mechanisms that may be involved in these relations.