Standardized Indirect Parent Adverse Childhood Events-Child Body Mass Index (BMI) Pathways Mediated by Parent Low Mental Health and Positive Parenting (n = 1307 Children)
| Latent variable | β1* | β2* | β3* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indirect pathways | |||
| Parent mental health pathway | |||
| Adverse childhood events (ACEs) → parent low mental health → parent BMI > 25 → child BMI percentile | 0.376†† | 0.145†† | 0.092†† |
| Positive parenting pathways | |||
| ACEs → positive parenting → support for physical activity (PA) → child BMI percentile | 0.219†† | 0.127† | 0.013 |
| ACEs → positive parenting → controlling feeding practices → child BMI percentile | −0.400†† | −0.042 |
Note: the 1307 sample is from the Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN, area and was collected between 2015 and 2017.
* Standardized coefficients.
Models include adjustments for food insecurity status and income of the parent ACEs-BMI percentile relationship; child overweight status of the controlling feeding-BMI percentile, and support for PA-BMI percentile relationships. Boldfaced coefficients are significant at the following levels: †P < .01; ††P < .001.
Interpretation example: parent ACEs-child BMI percentile indirect relationships were modeled with controls for household food insecurity status and income. At the dyad level, child overweight was controlled for the support for PA and controlling feeding relationship with child BMI percentile. Three indirect pathways operating through parent mental health and positive parenting were modeled. Component path coefficients were standardized for interpretability (β1, β2, and β3). There was strong statistical evidence at P < .001 for all low mental health path coefficients, indicating parent ACEs were positively associated with lower parent mental health (β1 = 0.376), low parent mental health was correlated with parent BMI > 25 (β2 = 0.145), and parent BMI >25 was associated with elevated child BMI percentile (β3 = 0.092).