Randomized Controlled Trial of a Program to Help Latina Mothers Help Their Children Cope with Stress: Effects on Parenting, Child Coping, and Adjustment.

"Madres Apoyando el Desarrollo Emocional de Sus Hijos" ("Mothers Supporting the Emotional Development of Their Children") is a parenting education program designed to help Latina mothers help their school-age children cope with stress. A previous randomized controlled trial, with a pre-post design, showed that the program had the predicted effects on mothers' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. However, no data were collected from the children in that initial evaluation. The purpose of the present study was to determine if the program impacted children's coping and adjustment. One hundred twenty-two primarily first-generation Latina mothers from rural Washington State were randomly assigned to the intervention or to a no treatment control. Seven implementations of the program were conducted. Mothers and their 8- to 13-year-old children completed assessments 1 week before the program started, 1 week after its completion, and 3 months later. The results for maternal behavior were largely replicated: at posttest, intervention mothers, compared to controls, reported higher levels of emotion coaching, showed greater self-efficacy for helping their child cope with stress, and were more likely to report positive strategies for scaffolding their child's responses to stressful situations. Several maternal effects (e.g., emotion-coaching and maternal efficacy) continued at 3 months. Children of intervention mothers at posttest used more primary control coping strategies and reported fewer emotional symptoms; analyses of mothers' ratings of child adjustment replicated the posttest child effects for emotional symptoms, showed fewer other psychological problems at posttest, and showed greater child prosocial behavior at 3 months. The results further support the program's efficacy and provide the first evidence of its effects on child coping and adjustment.

Obesity risk in Hispanic children: Bidirectional associations between child eating behavior and child weight status over time.

Individual differences in eating behaviors have been associated with obesity among young children. Food responsiveness tends to be positively associated with childhood obesity, satiety responsiveness tends to show a negative association, and the results for emotional overeating are mixed. Previous studies in this area, however, have generally employed cross-sectional designs. The purpose of the present study was to examine, in a sample of Hispanic children from families with low-income levels, the degree to which individual differences in child eating behaviors in the preschool years predicted changes in child weight into the early elementary school years. Parent/child dyads (n = 113) were seen on three separate occasions starting when the children were 4-years-old and ending when they were 8-years-old. Separate cross-lag panel analyses were conducted for food responsiveness, satiety responsiveness, and emotional overeating in examining the relationships between child eating behavior and child weight status over time. Consistent with previous cross-sectional studies, at all three time points, food responsiveness was positively associated with concurrent child weight status and satiety responsiveness showed a negative relationship. No concurrent relationship with child weight status was found for emotional overeating until the third time point when children were eight-years-old. Only two cross-lag associations between child eating behavior and child weight status were significant: emotional overeating and child weight status showed a bidirectional relationship between the second and third time points. Future longitudinal studies should examine these relationships in other populations.

Child weight status and accuracy of perceived child weight status as predictors of Latina mothers' feeding practices and styles.

This study focused on the relationship between low-income Latina mothers' perceptions of their preschool children's weight status and maternal feeding practices and styles, also considering the effects of actual child weight status and maternal concern about child weight. A total of 186 low-income Latina mother-child dyads participated. The vast majority of mothers underestimated the weight status of their child, but this varied by child weight status. Although only 30% of mothers of healthy weight children underestimated their child's weight status, 97% of mothers of overweight or obese children did so. No mother overestimated her child's weight status. Contrary to our hypotheses, in most cases, maternal perceptions of child's body weight were not related to maternal feeding styles, nor were many feeding practices predicted by concern about child weight. Instead, children's actual weight status was the strongest predictor of maternal feeding practices and feeding styles. Mothers of children with higher BMI z-scores reported higher levels of healthy eating guidance and responsiveness during feeding and lower levels of pressure to eat, food as reward, and using food to regulate the child's emotions. These mothers were more likely to show an indulgent and less likely to show an authoritarian feeding style. Concern about child weight did not account for any of these significant correlations. Maternal perceptions only mattered for restriction for weight purposes where there were independent effects of both perceived and actual weight status. Implications for understanding the development of child obesity in low-income, Latino populations are considered, along with recommendations for future research and for childhood obesity prevention programs.