Co-Parenting Dynamics and Early Childhood Obesity

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ABSTRACT This supplement will support the training and mentorship of Ms. Carmen Ramos, MS RD, a US Citizen and Latina woman raised in a low-income household. Ms. Ramos is pursuing a PhD at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Her career goal is to become an NIH- supported investigator conducting research to identify social and behavioral approaches to prevent nutrition-related chronic diseases among marginalized communities. The objective of Ms. Ramos' proposed research is to identify how two aspects of coparenting, general coparenting and child feeding-specific coparenting, relate to children's eating, activity, and sleep home environments, and obesity risk, among participants in the parent study, Maternal Self- Regulation and Early Childhood Obesity. Family systems research has long understood that how parents coparent, that is, how they relate to one another in their parental roles, impacts child socioemotional and behavioral development. Meanwhile, the influence of coparenting on children's eating, activity, sleep, and weight is poorly understood. The specific aims of this supplement are to, 1) Identify relationships between parents' general coparenting quality; families' eating, activity, and sleep home environment; and young children's adiposity; 2) Identify relationships between parents' child feeding-specific coparenting quality, families' eating home environment, and young children's adiposity; and 3) Examine the intersection of general coparenting and child feeding-specific coparenting including whether combinations of these constructs are differentially associated with families' eating home environment and young children's adiposity. The foundational research proposed in this supplement will help achieve the goal of the parent study to improve childhood obesity prevention and treatment by identifying aspects of coparenting that are critical to address to support sustained changes in families. Award of supplemental funding to support Ms. Ramos will advance her scientific knowledge, improve the quality of our research, and contribute to the NIH's goals of developing high-quality scientific human capital.