Depressed Mothers Likely to Have Overweight Children

Childhood obesity can be linked to depression in mothers, a latest study reveals.

Researchers at the Department of Pediatrics and the Montefiore Medical Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine conducted the study on 402 sets of mothers and found that depressed mothers are more likely to have obese children. This was commonly found in lower-income families, the study noted.

 "Maternal depressive symptoms are associated with child overweight and obese status and with several obesity-promoting practices," the authors wrote in the study published in the journal Academic Pediatrics. "These results support the need for maternal depression screening in pediatric obesity prevention programs."

The researchers studied mothers of children aged five,  by conducting cross-sectional surveys. "We used regression analyses to examine the relationship between maternal depressive symptoms ... and ... child weight status, ... obesity-promoting feeding practices, including mealtime practices and feeding styles and ... activity-related behaviors, including sleep time, screen time, and outdoor playtime," the authors wrote.

The study results showed that 23.4 percent of surveyed mothers showed depressive symptoms. It also found that these mothers were likely to have overweight children than women who did not show any signs of depression. Differences in the weight of children with depressed mothers were due to unhealthy eating habits and limited diets.

According to CDC, obesity and extreme obesity among U.S. low-income, preschool-aged children went down for the first time in recent years. From 2003 through 2010, the prevalence of obesity decreased slightly from 15.21 percent to 14.94 percent. Similarly, the prevalence of extreme obesity decreased from 2.22 percent to 2.07 percent.

The study team said that more research is needed to know how to give emotional support to these children.