ArticleBMC public health2021
Maternal stress and depressive symptoms and adolescents' body mass index: a prospective study.
Article in BMC public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- The longitudinal impact of individual and parental emotional factors and individual behavioral factors on weight and disordered eating: A scoping review.Reviews in endocrine & metabolic disorders · 2026Review
- The independent and joint associations of community space environmental satisfaction, and parents' educational attainment with psychological symptoms among Chinese adolescents.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Associations between polygenic risk scores for cardiometabolic phenotypes and adolescent depression and body dissatisfaction.Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Eating behaviors as pathways from early childhood adversity to adolescent cardiometabolic risk.Health psychology : official journal of the Division of Health Psychology, American Psychological Association · 2024Article
- Pre- and early postpartum psychosocial stress trajectories in mothers and child body mass index at 3 years: a birth cohort study.BMC pediatrics · 2023Article
- A longitudinal study on changes in food parenting practices during COVID-19 and the role of parental well-being.Appetite · 2023Article
- Demographic and mental health assessments in the adolescent brain and cognitive development study: Updates and age-related trajectories.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2021Article
- Is the Prospective Link between Parental Stress and Adolescent Snack Intake or Weight Outcome Mediated by Food Parenting Practices?Nutrients · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGrowing evidence suggests that maternal mental health issues are associated with (young) children's weight outcomes. However, most studies have been limited by cross-sectional designs and have been aimed at (younger) children. The current prospective study focuses on the link between maternal mental health (i.e., psychological stress and depressive symptoms) and adolescents' zBMI development.
methodsThe participants in the present study were part of wave 1 and 2 of a longitudinal study on Dutch adolescents' and their parents' health behavior. Adolescents (aged 10-14) and their parents were recruited through six secondary schools in the South and the East of the Netherlands. For this study, we only included biological mothers and their adolescent children who participated in both waves, with data on the main measures in both waves, leaving a final sample of 336 biological mother-child dyads. Adolescents height and weight were measured, and both parents and adolescents filled in validated questionnaires on perceived stress and depressive symptoms and answered additional questions concerning domain-specific stress. Regression analyses were performed in R to examine longitudinal links between maternal stress and depressive symptoms at baseline (T1) and adolescents' BMI standard deviation scores (zBMI) 6 months later (T2), corrected for baseline zBMI and covariates.
resultsMaternal general perceived stress (β = .20, p = .002) at T1 preceded higher adolescents' zBMI at T2, after controlling for baseline zBMI and other covariates, whereas maternal depressive symptoms at T1 (β = -.05, p = .44) and other domain-specific stress did not (maternal financial stress, maternal stress at work, maternal stress at home). Additionally, lower educational level among adolescents (β = .16, p = .001) and adolescent depressive symptoms (β = .16, p = .001) was associated with a higher zBMI at T2.
conclusionsResults suggest that maternal general stress, but not depressive symptoms, may influence adolescents' weight development. Our findings warrant future investigation on whether and how general stress among mothers may predict weight increases of their adolescent offspring.
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