511 - Parental education level associations with adolescent’s obesity outcomes: the potential role of adolescent academic intention

Sunday, April 30, 2023

3:30 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Poster Number: 511
Publication Number: 511.3

Sabrina L. Chen, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, Saratoga, CA, United States; Abigail L. Nita, New York University Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States; Chanelle Coble, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States; Robin Ortiz, NYU Grossman School of Medicine/Institute for Excellence in Health Equity, New York, NY, United States; Carol Duh-Leong, NYU Grossman School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States

Presenting Author(s)

Abigail L. Nita, BS Ed (she/her/hers)

Research Data Associate
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
New York, New York, United States

First Author(s)

Abigail L. Nita, BS Ed (she/her/hers)

Research Data Associate
New York University Grossman School of Medicine
New York, New York, United States

Co-Author(s)

SC

Sabrina L. Chen, n/a (she/her/hers)

New York University Grossman School of Medicine
Saratoga, California, United States

Background: Parent educational level is a key driver of child socioeconomic status (SES), potentially contributing to childhood obesity risk. Less is known about pathways that mediate pathways between parent education and child obesity risk. One potential mediator, child academic goal orientation, may inform comprehensive obesity prevention strategies that integrate health promotion with overall child wellness and academic achievement.

Objective: First, we aimed to explore contributions of parent education to child BMI by assessing separately the relationship between mother and father’s education with adolescent obesity outcomes. Second, we tested the hypothesis that this relationship would be mediated by adolescent academic intention — the confidence in one’s ability to achieve academic goals.

Design/Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of 1451 children from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FF). FF is a longitudinal birth cohort study of families designed to study the challenges of households with unmarried parents by oversampling non-marital births. We performed linear regressions, adjusting for child sex, multiple births, household size, parent age, and primary caregiver obesity, to examine associations between maternal or paternal education level (shortly after birth) and adolescent BMI/obesity risk (age 15). Path analysis was used to investigate whether the adolescent’s response to: “how likely are you to graduate from college?”, mediated the association between parent education and adolescent BMI (Figure 1).

Results: The sample was primarily non-Hispanic Black (49.9%), Hispanic (23.5%), and non-Hispanic White (22.6%). At age 15, the mean adolescent BMI was 23+/-4.2 kg/m2 with 29% of adolescents classified as overweight/obese. Greater maternal and paternal education were associated with lower odds of overweight/obesity (Table 1). While both maternal and paternal education were associated with adolescent BMI, paternal education had larger (more negative) Beta coefficients (Table 1). Greater adolescent academic intention was associated with lower BMI (B=-0.520, p=0.010), which significantly mediated a portion of the association between parent education attainment and adolescent BMI (Figure 1) moreso for maternal education (Figure 1A).

Conclusion(s): Findings highlight the influence of parent education and adolescent academic intention on adolescent obesity risk. Future work should consider if maternal and paternal education may represent different aspects of the relationship between SES and obesity, which may be representative of household environment and economic resources, respectively.
Table1.jpeg

Slide1.jpeg