Family Functioning, Parenting Characteristics and Obesity in Chinese Adolescents

描述（由申请人提供）：中国是一个正在经历快速经济转型的发展中国家，儿童肥胖症的增长令人担忧。在中国发达的大都市地区，患病率甚至更高。儿童和青少年肥胖症患病率的急剧增加由于其长期健康影响而引起了重大关注。儿童肥胖可能会增加发病率以及在以后的生活中对某些癌症的易感性。努力预防肥胖和保持健康的体重已被公认为是最具成本效益的长期癌症控制策略之一。父母和家庭环境在影响青少年采用和维持健康体重相关行为方面起着重要作用，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、行为和家庭功能的某些特征可能对青少年肥胖的发展有影响。尽管一些实证研究，大多数与横断面研究设计，提供了初步的数据，有一个严格的调查与纵向数据的迫切需要，以更好地了解这些家庭和父母的特点和他们的作用，影响管理的体重相关的行为和肥胖的风险在青少年。缺乏研究调查的动态相互关系的多方面的家庭功能和肥胖和相关行为的青少年人口。由于肥胖在中国并不普遍，但正在迅速增加，因此有可能研究肥胖在其早期阶段的流行，沿着社会和经济的快速发展以及家庭关系在这一过程中的作用。本研究采用两个纵向队列数据集，系统地研究了关键的父母和家庭因素对青少年行为结果（包括肥胖、饮食行为和食物消耗、身体活动和不活动以及抑郁症状）发展风险的纵向动态影响。最先进的建模方法将被应用于分析家庭功能和养育特征在行为结果的发展风险中的影响，并在一定的纵向时期内模拟家庭功能和行为结果之间的动态相互关系，这可能是彼此的原因和结果。父母的特点和家庭功能的潜在的相互作用的影响，以及潜在的差异性的影响，跨亲子性别将被探讨，以推进纵向的异质性的理解，家庭和父母的影响，肥胖的发展风险和相关的行为结果。这项研究的结果预计将有很大的潜力，以推进知识的影响，父母和家庭因素的发展风险的肥胖和相关行为在青春期，这可能会引导转化为适当的干预措施的发展，作为长期的战略，癌症预防和控制。

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.