title: Differential Influences of Parenting Dimensions and Parental Physical Abuse during Childhood on Overweight and Obesity in Adolescents.
abstract: Besides other explanatory variables, parenting styles and parental violence might also be responsible for setting a path towards overweight/obesity in childhood. While this association has consistently been observed for adults, findings for adolescents still remain scarce and inconsistent. Therefore, the goal of this study is to add evidence on this topic for children and adolescents. Analyses are based on a sample of 1729 German, ninth-grade students. To analyze associations between parenting dimensions and weight status, non-parametric conditional inference trees were applied. Three gender-specific pathways for a heightened risk of overweight/obesity were observed: (1) female adolescents who report having experienced severe parental physical abuse and medium/high parental warmth in childhood; (2) male adolescents who report having experienced low or medium parental monitoring in childhood; and (3) this second pathway for male adolescents is more pronounced if the families receive welfare. The importance of promoting parenting styles characterized by warmth and a lack of physical abuse is also discussed. This is one of only a few studies examining the association of parenting dimensions/parental physical abuse and weight status in adolescence. Future studies should include even more parenting dimensions, as well as parental physical abuse levels, in order to detect and untangle gender-specific effects on weight status.
authors.affiliation: Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e.V.), Lützerodestraße 9, 30161 Hannover, Germany. thomas.moessle@kfn.de.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Mößle
authors.affiliation: Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e.V.), Lützerodestraße 9, 30161 Hannover, Germany. soeren.kliem@kfn.de.
authors.forename: Sören
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kliem
authors.affiliation: Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e.V.), Lützerodestraße 9, 30161 Hannover, Germany. anna.lohmann@kfn.de.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Lohmann
authors.affiliation: Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony (Kriminologisches Forschungsinstitut Niedersachsen e.V.), Lützerodestraße 9, 30161 Hannover, Germany. Marie.Bergmann@kfn.de.
authors.forename: Marie Christine
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Bergmann
authors.affiliation: Institute of Crime and Delinquency, Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Pfingstweidstrasse 96, 8037 Zurich, Switzerland. baid@zhaw.ch.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Baier
keywords: BMI; adolescence; body weight; childhood; monitoring; obesity; overweight; parental physical abuse; parenting style; warmth