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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Children and Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1476733

Moderating effects of demographic characteristics on the relationship between parenting practices and energy balance related behaviors of Chinese preschoolers

Provisionally accepted
Zhou Peng Zhou Peng 1Patrick, Wing-chung Lau Patrick, Wing-chung Lau 1*Li Ming Wen Li Ming Wen 2
  • 1 Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China
  • 2 The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Early establishment of energy balance related behaviors (EBRBs) may be effective in combating unhealthy lifestyle in preschoolers. Parents are responsible for cultivating preschoolers' EBRBs directly through parenting practices. Although investigating the impact of various parenting practices on preschoolers' EBRBs is crucial to determine which practices should be recommended to parents to help reverse childhood unhealthy lifestyle, it is important to assess whether these effects of parenting practices on preschoolers' EBRBs would be similar across different groups of preschoolers, necessitating research into the moderating effects of demographic characteristics. Methods: Baseline dataset was utilized from an electronic health intervention study of Chinese 3-6-year-old preschoolers. Preschoolers' PA and sleep duration and quality were objectively examined using wGT3X ActiGraph accelerometer. Data related to parents and preschoolers' eating behaviors and sleep problems were subjectively assessed using parent-reported questionnaires. The PROCESS macro version 4.2 was used to perform moderation analysis. When the interaction revealed a p-value of less than .05 and the 95% confidence interval did not include 0, the conditional effects of the focal predictor at various levels of the moderator were further examined (p < .05) to investigate how the relationship between parenting practices and preschoolers' EBRBs varied with different moderator levels. Results: Married parents exhibited the desired outcomes in the relationship between parenting practices and their preschoolers' EBRBs. In contrast, divorced/separated parents showed unfavorable results in this relationship. The association between the parents' and preschoolers' BMI varied depending on parents' socioeconomic status, the preschoolers' age, and the number of children in the household. The preschoolers' age showed different moderating trend on the relationship between parents' PA and preschoolers' sedentary behaviors as well as the association of eating-related PSE with preschoolers' eating behaviors. The mechanisms linking the parents' PSE to the preschoolers' PA, sedentary behaviors, and sleep duration were influenced by the preschoolers' gender and the number of children in the household.The potential parental influence warrants further investigation with the consideration that the relationship between parenting practices and preschoolers' EBRBs varied across different group of children.

    Keywords: physical activity, Diet, Sleep, screen time; child-rearing behaviors, preschool-age children. Clinical trial: NCT06025019

    Received: 06 Aug 2024; Accepted: 11 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Peng, Lau and Wen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Patrick, Wing-chung Lau, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon, Hong Kong, SAR China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.