Influence of Social Media Uses and Gratifications on Family Health among U.S. Parents: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Some research suggests that parents on social media have access to greater social support and health information. However, evidence also connects parental social media use to negative outcomes including increased parental stress, depression, and distraction. Using the uses and gratification theory, this study goes beyond measures of parents' individual mental health and explores social media use and its association with family well-being. Family health outcomes were predicted to vary with parents' use and gratifications of social media, with parents who use social media primarily for information and connection scoring higher on family health and parents who used social media for entertainment scoring worse on family health. The sample included 482 heterosexual married or cohabiting partners recruited through a Qualtrics panel. All participants were parents of children ages of 3-13, with mothers and fathers each completing the survey. Findings indicated that fathers' use of social media for entertainment and connecting with family and friends was associated with better family well-being and health resources (p < 0.01). However, mothers' use of social media did not have a statistically meaningful relationship with family health variables. There was no evidence that parental social media use was associated with negative family health outcomes. Longitudinal data is needed to determine the temporal relationship between social media use and family health. Public health professionals interested in improving family health may consider how to better reach fathers on social media to increase health resources.

The Association of COVID-19 Stressors and Family Health on Overeating before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Prior studies have examined how stress and the family environment affect overeating, but less is known about how COVID-19 stressors and family health may affect overeating during the COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions included: (1) Did COVID-19-related stressors increase the risk for overeating among adults in the United States? (2) Did family health protect against overeating during a pandemic? The sample included 443 participants aged 18 years and older living in the United States who were recruited via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Stata version 16 was used to analyze the data using multiple linear regression. The results indicate that one year into the pandemic, COVID-19 stressors were associated with increased overeating, even after adjusting for overeating before the pandemic. More family health resources were associated with less overeating. These results indicate that although COVID-19 stressors were associated with overeating, greater family health resources helped prevent overeating. Interventions and policies that aim to increase health resources for families may be particularly beneficial at preventing overeating and obesity in the face of long- and short-term stress.