Maternal Self-Efficacy Is Protective for Child (but Not Mother) Body Mass Index Among Mexican-Origin Children with Negative Temperament.
Sonali Rajan, Laudan Jahromi, Diamond Bravo and 2 others
PMID 31169655WHAT IT FOUND
Among children of Mexican-origin teen mothers, higher mothers' confidence in parenting was linked to lower child BMI when children had difficult temperaments; lower confidence was linked to higher child BMI.
Key findings
01The link between children's difficult temperament and child BMI depended on mothers' confidence in parenting: higher confidence was linked to lower child BMI with more difficult temperament, and lower confidence was linked to higher child BMI.
02Girls' difficult temperament at four was linked to higher mother BMI at five; the study did not find a link for boys.
03Mother BMI and child BMI were linked for girls; the study did not find a link for boys.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
The study included only Mexican-origin adolescent mothers and their children in one southwestern U.S. metropolitan area, so it may not apply to older mothers, other groups, or other places. Mothers' BMI was based on self-reported height and weight when the child was five, not measured height and weight. The study did not measure mothers' BMI during pregnancy, which could be an important factor for child health. The short questionnaire used to measure children's difficult temperament was less reliable in this sample than in earlier samples. The study compared obesity rates with non-pregnant or non-parenting teens because comparable data for other racial-ethnic groups of adolescent mothers were not available. The study measured associations, not the effect of changing mothers' confidence in parenting.
Declared interests
The authors reported no conflicts of interest or financial ties to disclose.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that raising mothers' confidence in parenting will lower BMI. The study measured associations in one sample of Mexican-origin teen mothers and children, not an intervention effect.