ArticlePublic health nutrition2014
A longitudinal analysis of maternal depressive symptoms and children's food consumption and weight outcomes.
Article in Public health nutrition, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Postnatal Depression Beyond 12 Months: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.International journal of mental health nursing · 2025Pooled it
- Systematic review: Symptoms of parental depression and anxiety and offspring overweight.Revista de saude publica · 2020Pooled it
- Associations of maternal stress with children's weight-related behaviours: a systematic literature review.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2017Pooled it
- The role of parental depression during early childhood obesity treatment-Secondary findings from a randomized controlled trial.Pediatric obesity · 2021Trial
- Association between depressive symptoms of mothers and eating behaviors of school-going children in Urban Bangladesh: A cross-sectional study.BMC women's health · 2023Article
- Maternal stress and depressive symptoms and adolescents' body mass index: a prospective study.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Maternal anxiety and diet quality among mothers and toddlers from low-income households.Maternal & child nutrition · 2020Article
- Depressive symptoms in adolescent girls at-risk for type 2 diabetes and their parents.Psychology, health & medicine · 2020Article
- Maternal mental health at 5 years and childhood overweight or obesity at 11 years: evidence from the UK Millennium Cohort Study.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2019Article
- Maternal Depressive Symptoms Mediate the Association between Socio-economic Status and Adolescent Weight Outcomes: A Longitudinal Analysis.Maternal and child health journal · 2018Article
- The prevalence of rapid weight gain in infancy differs by the growth reference and age interval used for evaluation.Annals of human biology · 2016Article
- Maternal depressive symptoms and weight-related parenting behaviors.Maternal and child health journal · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveMaternal depressive symptoms negatively impact mothers' parenting practices and children's development, but the evidence linking these symptoms to children's obesity is mixed.
designWe use a large sample to examine contemporaneous and lagged associations between maternal depressive symptoms and children's BMI, obesity and food consumption, controlling for background characteristics.
settingData from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), a longitudinal study of children from infancy through kindergarten in the USA, were collected at four waves from 2001 to 2007, when children were 9 months, 2 years, 4 years and 5½years of age, through surveys, child assessments and observations. SUBJECTS: A sub-sample of children from the ECLS-B is used (n 6500).
resultsBetween 17 % and 19 % of mothers reported experiencing depressive symptoms; 17 % to 20 % of children were obese. Maternal depressive symptoms were associated with a small decrease in the likelihood her child was obese (0·8 percentage points) and with lower consumption of healthy foods. The duration of maternal depressive symptoms was associated with higher BMI (0·02 sd) among children whose parents lacked college degrees.
conclusionsResults indicate that mothers' depressive symptoms have small associations with children's food consumption and obesity. Among children whose parents lack college degrees, persistent maternal depressive symptoms are associated with slightly higher child BMI. Findings highlight the need to control for depression in analyses of children's weight. Interventions that consider maternal depression early may be useful in promoting healthy weight outcomes and eating habits among children.
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