Abstract
BackgroundChaos has implications for child health that may extend to childhood obesity. Yet, results from studies describing associations between chaos and childhood obesity are mixed. New approaches to studying the environments of young children may help to clarify chaos-obesity relationships.MethodsWe conducted a concurrent mixed methods analysis of quantitative and qualitative data describing home and neighborhood chaos among a diverse cohort of 283 caregiver-toddlers dyads from Ohio. We examined the underlying structure of environmental and household chaos using exploratory factor analysis then sought to validate the structure using qualitative field notes. We generated total scores for factors of chaos and described their distributions overall and according to cohort characteristics. Additionally, we conducted a thematic content analysis of brief ethnographies to provide preliminary construct validity for our indicators of chaos.ResultsDyads varied according to household composition, income, education, and race/ethnicity. We found evidence for a multi-factor structure for chaos, which included disorganization and neighborhood noise. Household disorganization scores ranged from 0 to 7.3 and were on average 2.1 (SD = 1.8). Neighborhood noise scores ranged from 0 to 4 and were on average 1.1 (SD = 1.1). Both disorganization and neighborhood noise were associated with indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage, such as lower educational attainment and household income. Qualitative data from households with high and low scores on the two identified factors were aligned in ways that were supportive of construct validity and further contextualized the social and material environments in which chaos occurred.ConclusionsChaos represents a complex construct with implications spanning various disciplines, including childhood obesity research. Previous studies suggest challenges associated with measuring chaos may limit the conclusions that can be drawn about which aspect of chaos (if any) matter most of early childhood weight development. We advance the literature by demonstrating chaos may be comprised of conceptually distinct subdomains. Future childhood obesity prevention research may benefit from more contemporary measure of chaos, such as those relying on direct observations that account for a multifaceted underlying structure.
Highlights
Chaos has implications for child health that may extend to childhood obesity
Chaos represents a complex construct with implications spanning various disciplines, including childhood obesity research
Future childhood obesity prevention research may benefit from more contemporary measure of chaos, such as those relying on direct observations that account for a multifaceted underlying structure
Summary
Chaos has implications for child health that may extend to childhood obesity. New approaches to studying the environments of young children may help to clarify chaos-obesity relationships. Obesity and related comorbid chronic conditions often persist into adolescence and adulthood [2]. The persistent nature of this condition may result from the establishment of obesity-related behaviors in early childhood, including poor diet, obesogenic eating behaviors, and physical inactivity, which often track through adulthood [3]. Health behavior patterns underlying the development of childhood obesity are influenced by a complex ecology of factors [4]. Family homes are ideal settings for the implementation of childhood obesity preventions strategies [8,9,10,11], as the family home represents a microsystem of processes by which child functioning is shaped [12]. More research is needed to understand how features of family homes may influence such efforts
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