The Relationships between Parental Lifestyle Habits and Children's Overweight

Kim, Sung Won; Cho, Young Gyu; Kang, Jae Heon; Lee, Sung Hee; Lee, Ji Eun; Park, Hyun Ah; Song, Hye Ryoung; Song, Ji Hyun

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Children of obese parents are more likely to be obese themselves. Parental lifestyle habits could induce or aggravate children's obesity. This study was conducted to assess the relationship between parental lifestyle habits and children's overweight.
METHODS
Children who were enrolled in this study were first grade students from elementary schools in Gwacheon and Seoul. A total of 121 children (50 overweight children and 71 normal weight children) and their parents underwent anthropometric measurements and also were surveyed by a questionnaire.
RESULTS
The children of obese parents were more likely to be diagnosed as overweight compared to the children whose parents were normal weight (Father: P=0.037, Mother: P=0.001). Among the paternal lifestyle habits, hours of watching TV or computer usage (adjusted odd ratio =2.08, 95% CI=0.90~4.80) and eating frequency of soda, ice cream, cake and chips (adjusted OR=5.77, 95% CI=1.65~20.22) were found to be related to their children being overweight. Among the maternal lifestyle habits, hours of watching TV or computer usage (adjusted OR=2.35, 95% CI=0.99~5.58), the frequency of eating breakfast (adjusted OR: 2.48, 95% CI=1.07~5.75) and the frequency of overeating (adjusted OR: 2.15, 95% CI=0.91~5.11) were found to be related to their children being overweight. Additive adjustment of children's lifestyle habits made the relationship between maternal lifestyle habits and children's overweight reduced. However, the odds ratio of paternal lifestyle habits was not reduced.
CONCLUSION
Parental obesigenic lifestyle habits were related to children's overweight. Maternal lifestyle habits could affect her children's weight via an effect on her children's lifestyle habits