Poor maternal–child relationships associated with increased risk for adolescent obesity

Anderson SE. Pediatrics. 2012;129:132-140.

Issue: January 2012

The quality of early emotional maternal–child relationships was shown to affect the risk for adolescent obesity in a prospective analysis recently published in Pediatrics.

“Obesity is affecting even preschool-aged children, and we lack effective approaches for prevention,” the researchers wrote. “We provide evidence that the quality of the early maternal–child relationship is associated with risk for adolescent obesity.”

More than one-quarter of toddlers with the lowest-quality emotional relationship with their mothers were obese as teens, according to the researchers.

Using data from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, researchers assessed child attachment security and maternal sensitivity for 977 participants at 15, 24 and 36 months of age. The number of times a child was insecurely attached or experienced low maternal sensitivity at any of the three ages dictated a maternal–child relationship quality score; a score of at least 3 was considered a poor-quality relationship.

A BMI of at least the 95th percentile at age 15 years was considered obese.

Nearly 25% of participants had poor-quality maternal–child relationships (24.7%) vs. 22% of participants who were neither insecurely attached nor experienced low maternal sensitivity at any age.

The rate of adolescent obesity was 26.1% for those with a score of at least 3; 15.5% for those with a score of 2 and 13% for those with a score of 0.

The odds of adolescent obesity were 2.45 times higher in participants with the poorest quality maternal–child relationships compared with those with the highest quality relationships (95% CI, 1.49-4.04). Compared with insecure attachment, low maternal sensitivity was more strongly associated with adolescent obesity, the researchers wrote.

Follow EndocrineToday.com on Twitter.