Abstract
BackgroundParents play an important role in providing their children with social support for healthy eating and physical activity. However, different types of social support (e.g., instrumental, emotional, modeling, rules) might have different results on children’s actual behavior. The purpose of this study was to assess the association of the different types of social support with children’s physical activity and eating behaviors, as well as to examine whether these associations differ across racial/ethnic groups.MethodsWe surveyed 1169 low-income, ethnically diverse third graders and their caregivers to assess how children’s physical activity and eating behaviors (fruit and vegetable and sugar-sweetened beverage intake) were associated with instrumental social support, emotional social support, modeling, rules and availability of certain foods in the home. We used sequential linear regression to test the association of parental social support with a child’s physical activity and eating behaviors, adjusting for covariates, and then stratified to assess the differences in this association between racial/ethnic groups.ResultsParental social support and covariates explained 9–13% of the variance in children’s energy balance-related behaviors. Family food culture was significantly associated with fruit and vegetable and sugar-sweetened beverage intake, with availability of sugar-sweetened beverages in the home also associated with sugar-sweetened beverage intake. Instrumental and emotional support for physical activity were significantly associated with the child’s physical activity. Results indicate that the association of various types of social support with children’s physical activity and eating behaviors differ across racial/ethnic groups.ConclusionsThese results provide considerations for future interventions that aim to enhance parental support to improve children’s energy balance-related behaviors.
Highlights
Parents play an important role in providing their children with social support for healthy eating and physical activity
42% of families indicated that they received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), 12% received WIC, and 41% said that the family sometimes or almost always experienced food insecurity
We found some other associations between parental social support and energy balance-related behaviors in children to be consistent with the literature, such as the association of instrumental [63,64,65] and emotional support
Summary
Parents play an important role in providing their children with social support for healthy eating and physical activity. Different types of social support (e.g., instrumental, emotional, modeling, rules) might have different results on children’s actual behavior. A variety of parental social support behaviors for children’s eating and PA have been identified, including instrumental and emotional support, modeling, having rules, and certain foods being available or unavailable at home [16,17,18,19]. Emotional support is intangible and is evident when parents provide encouragement for eating healthy foods or engaging in PA [23, 24], and by demonstrating these behaviors themselves, parents model proper eating or exercise to their children [17, 25, 26]. A better understanding of how the different types of social support contribute to children’s behaviors can help inform parenting practices and interventions targeting parenting practices [18, 23]
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