title: Parental Reports of Infant and Child Eating Behaviors are not Affected by Their Beliefs About Their Twins' Zygosity.
abstract: Parental perception of zygosity might bias heritability estimates derived from parent rated twin data. This is the first study to examine if similarities in parental reports of their young twins' behavior were biased by beliefs about their zygosity. Data were from Gemini, a British birth cohort of 2402 twins born in 2007. Zygosity was assessed twice, using both DNA and a validated parent report questionnaire at 8 (SD = 2.1) and 29 months (SD = 3.3). 220/731 (8 months) and 119/453 (29 months) monozygotic (MZ) pairs were misclassified as dizygotic (DZ) by parents; whereas only 6/797 (8 months) and 2/445 (29 months) DZ pairs were misclassified as MZ. Intraclass correlations for parent reported eating behaviors (four measured at 8 months; five at 16 months) were of the same magnitude for correctly classified and misclassified MZ pairs, suggesting that parental zygosity perception does not influence reporting on eating behaviors of their young twins.
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: Moritz
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Herle
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK.
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Fildes
authors.affiliation: Department for Health Evidence & Department of Primary and Community Care, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Cornelia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: van Jaarsveld
authors.affiliation: Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Fruhling
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rijsdijk
authors.affiliation: Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre, Department of Epidemiology & Public Health, University College London, London, WC1E 6BT, UK. c.llewellyn@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Clare H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Llewellyn
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003469:Culture; D004247:DNA / Q000235:genetics; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D010290:Parents; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic
chemical_list: D004247:DNA
keywords: Child development; Eating behaviors; Heritability; Misclassified zygosity; Parental bias; Twin research