The Relationship of Childhood Adiposity to Parent Body Mass Index and Eating Behavior

OBJECTIVE: To better understand risk factors for the development of obesity in early childhood, we examined the association between children\u27s adiposity and their parents\u27 eating behavior and body mass index (BMI).RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Parents of 85 white children 36 months of age (49 boys and 36 girls) completed the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire measuring three dimensions of parent eating behavior: disinhibited eating, cognitive restraint of eating, and susceptibility to hunger. Parent BMI (kg/m2) was calculated using self-reported height and weight. The children\u27s percentage body fat was assessed by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry analysis.RESULTS: Twenty-six percent of parents were obese (BMI \u3e or = 30 kg/m2). Both maternal and paternal BMI were associated with higher scores for disinhibition (r = 0.69 and r = 0.68, p \u3c 0.001), and maternal BMI was also associated with higher scores for hunger (r = 0.51, p \u3c 0.001). There were no significant relationships between children\u27s percentage body fat and parent eating scores, and the correlation between children\u27s percentage body fat and parent BMI was significant only between mothers and daughters (r = 0.35, p = 0.04). Obese parents were no more likely to have a child who was fatter (upper quintile of percentage body fat for gender).DISCUSSION: Among 36 month-old white children, parent eating behavior was related to parent BMI, but not to children\u27s adiposity. There was only a weak relationship between parent BMI and child adiposity. Despite the aggregation of adiposity within families due to shared genes and environments, children may not express differences in susceptibility to obesity by 3 years of age