Investigating the Efficacy of Genetic, Environmental, and Multifactorial Risk Information When Communicating Obesity Risk to Parents of Young Children.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Effectively communicating with parents about children's obesity risk is of critical importance for preventive medicine and public health.

Purpose

The current study investigates the efficacy of communications focused on two primary causes of obesity: genes and environment.

Methods

We compared parental feeding responses to messages focused on (i) genetics alone, (ii) family environment alone, (iii) genetics-family environment interaction (G × FE), and (iv) no causal message. We also examined whether parental guilt mediates the effect of message type on feeding. Our sample consisted of 190 parents, half mothers and half fathers, of children 3-7 years old. After receiving one of the four types of messages, parents chose foods for their child using the Virtual R

SUBMITTER: Persky S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8311788 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature