Family Functioning, Parenting Characteristics and Obesity in Chinese Adolescents

描述(申请人提供)：中国，一个正在快速经济转型的发展中国家，儿童肥胖症出现了惊人的增长。在中国等发达都市地区，患病率更高。由于对健康的长期影响，儿童和青少年肥胖率的急剧上升引起了重大关切。儿童肥胖可能会增加发病率，并在晚年增加对某些癌症的易感性。预防肥胖和保持健康体重的努力已被认为是控制癌症的最具成本效益的长期战略之一。父母和家庭环境在影响青少年接受和维持与体重相关的健康行为方面发挥着重要作用，这些行为调节能量平衡并最终导致肥胖状态。父母教养方式、做法和家庭功能的某些特征可能对青少年肥胖的发展产生影响。尽管一些经验性研究--大多数采用横断面研究设计--已经提供了初步数据，但迫切需要使用纵向数据进行严格的调查，以更好地了解这些家庭和父母的特征及其在影响青少年体重相关行为管理和肥胖风险方面的作用。在青少年人群中，缺乏研究家庭功能的多方面与肥胖及相关行为之间的动态互动关系的研究。由于肥胖在中国中并不普遍，但正在迅速上升，因此有可能研究肥胖在其早期阶段的流行以及社会和经济的快速发展以及家庭关系在其中的作用。本研究以中国中国地区几个主要大城市的青少年为研究对象，利用已有的两组纵向队列数据，系统研究了父母和家庭关键因素对青少年肥胖、饮食行为和食物消费、体力活动和缺乏活动、抑郁症状等行为结局发展风险的纵向动态影响。最新的建模方法将用于分析家庭功能和父母教养特征对行为结果发展风险的影响，并对家庭功能和行为结果之间的动态互惠关系进行建模，这些关系可能是某一纵向时期彼此的因果关系。本课程将探讨父母养育特征和家庭功能的潜在交互作用，以及亲子性别之间的潜在差异影响，以促进对纵向家庭和父母对肥胖发展风险和相关行为结果影响的异质性的理解。这项研究的结果有望极大地促进人们对父母和家庭因素对青春期肥胖及相关行为发展风险的影响的认识，并可能指导制定适当的干预措施，作为癌症预防和控制的长期策略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): An alarming increase in pediatric obesity has occurred in China, a developing country undergoing rapid economic transition. The prevalence was even higher in the developed metropolitan areas of China. The dramatic increase in the prevalence of obesity in children and adolescents has raised major concerns due to the long-term health implications. Pediatric obesity may increase morbidity as well as susceptibility to certain cancers in later life. Efforts to prevent obesity and maintain a healthy body weight has been recognized as one of most cost-effective long-term strategies for cancer control. Parents and the family environment play an important role in influencing adolescents' adoption and maintenance of healthy weight-related behaviors that regulate energy balance and ultimately obesity status. Certain characteristics of parenting styles, practices and family functioning may be influential in the development of obesity among adolescents. Even though some empirical studies, most with cross-sectional study designs, have provided preliminary data, there is an urgent need for rigorous investigations with longitudinal data for an improved understanding of these familial and parental characteristics and their roles in influencing management of weight-related behaviors and the risks of obesity in adolescents. There is a lack of research investigating the dynamic reciprocal relationships between multiple aspects of family functioning and obesity and related behaviors in adolescent populations. As obesity is not as widespread in China but is rapidly increasing, it is possible to study an epidemic of obesity in its earlier stags along with rapid social and economic development and the role of family relations in the process. We propose to systematically investigate longitudinal dynamic influences of critical parental and familial factors on adolescents' developmental risks of behavioral outcomes including obesity, eating behaviors and food consumption, physical activity and inactivity, and depressive symptoms with two existing longitudinal cohort datasets collected in representative samples of Chinese adolescents living in several major large cities in China. State of the art modeling approaches will be applied to analyze influence of family functioning and parenting characteristics in the developmental risks of behavioral outcomes and model the dynamic reciprocal relationships between family functioning and behavioral outcomes that may be both causes and consequences of each other during a certain longitudinal period. Potential interactive effects of parenting characteristics and family functioning as well as the potentially differential influences across parent-child gender will be explored to advance understanding of the heterogeneity of longitudinal familial and parental influences on the developmental risks of obesity and related behavioral outcomes. Findings of this study are expected to have the great potential to advance knowledge on the influences of parental and familial factors on the developmental risks of obesity and related behaviors during adolescence, which may guide to translate into the development of appropriate interventions as long-term strategies for cancer prevention and control.