Relationship between food insecurity, child weight status, and parent-reported child eating and snacking behaviors.
Tanja V E Kral, Jesse Chittams, Reneé H Moore
PMID 28321980WHAT IT FOUND
Food-insecure children were more often obese than food-secure children.
Differences in eating when full and parent feeding did not hold after income and race adjustment.
Key findings
0177% of children from food insecure households were obese versus 41% of children from food secure households, and the odds of obesity were 4.9 times higher.
02Food-insecure children showed greater external eating past satiation and in the absence of hunger in unadjusted comparisons, but the difference did not remain after adjusting for household income and maternal race.
03Food-insecure mothers expressed greater concern about child weight and used more restrictive feeding in unadjusted comparisons, but these differences did not remain after adjusting for household income and maternal race.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The sample was only 50 families, and this was a secondary analysis without its own power calculation. The design compared groups at one time point, so it cannot show that food insecurity caused obesity or eating differences. The 6-item food security measure did not capture severe food insecurity or child hunger. Adjusting for household income and maternal race removed several differences in eating and feeding, so the independent effect of food insecurity is unclear. The study did not assess household size, so it could not determine how many families lived below federal poverty levels. Child eating and feeding outcomes were reported by mothers, and the paper notes that parent reports may not match actual child behavior. Most mothers in both groups were overweight or obese, which may be linked to child obesity independently of food security. Overweight children were excluded, so the results do not speak to children with overweight BMI-for-age. Families were recruited through local advertisements, pediatric offices, and grocery stores, which may limit generalizability.
Declared interests
The authors report no actual or potential conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that food insecurity causes childhood obesity or that nurses should start routine screening based on this paper. This was a small cross-sectional secondary analysis, and the eating and feeding differences did not remain after adjusting for income and race.