Stress, Eating Behavior and Adverse Health in Parents of Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Anna van der Lubbe, Hanna Swaab, Robert R J M Vermeiren and 1 others
PMID 36434479WHAT IT FOUND
Mothers of young children with autism reported high parenting stress and higher rates of obesity and metabolic syndrome than the general population.
Their stress levels correlated with emotional and external eating. Fathers reported high stress too, but showed no significant differences in physical health outcomes.
Key findings
01Over half of the mothers and a third of the fathers scored above the 90th percentile for clinical parenting stress, significantly higher than reference groups.
02Mothers had significantly higher prevalence rates of obesity, abdominal obesity, and metabolic syndrome compared to women from the general population.
03Higher parenting stress in mothers was significantly associated with more emotional and external eating, but no such link was found in fathers.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is cross-sectional, so it cannot determine whether stress caused the health issues or if pre-existing health conditions influenced stress levels. There was no direct control group; comparisons were made using existing population norms, which may not perfectly match the study sample's demographics. The norm data for parenting stress was based only on mothers, requiring fathers' scores to be compared against a maternal reference group. The sample size was relatively small (91 parents), and the study did not account for all potential confounding variables in the comparison groups.
Declared interests
Funding was provided by the Korczak Foundation for Autism and Related Disorders and Stichting tot Steun Vereniging tot Christelijke Verzorging van Geestes- en Zenuwzieken. No specific conflicts of interest declarations were provided in the text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that stress directly caused the obesity or metabolic syndrome in these mothers. The study is cross-sectional and found correlations, not causation. It is also possible that some mothers were obese before the child's diagnosis or birth.