Childhood Obesity among Socioeconomically Vulnerable Families: A Path Model Using Parenting Behavior and Its Associates

Abstract

Using path analysis, we aimed to examine whether parenting self-efficacy and parenting styles would be significant associates with parenting behavior, and the parenting behavior would be significantly associated with the obesity status of children from socioeconomically vulnerable families.A cross-sectional study was conducted with 61 parents and their children enrolled in public welfare systems in a community in Seoul, South Korea. Parenting behavior was defined as encouraging a child’s healthy eating habits and was measured using the Child Feeding Questionnaire.In the path model, higher levels of parenting self-efficacy and lower levels of authoritarian parenting were significantly associated with a higher level of parenting behavior, which was significantly associated with lower child body mass index z-scores.Community health nurses need to provide intervention strategies for increasing parenting self-efficacy and decreasing authoritarian parenting styles to promote parenting behaviors and childhood obesity prevention among socioeconomically vulnerable families.