Preschooler obesity and parenting styles of mothers and fathers: Australian National Population Study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this work was to determine relationships between BMI status at ages 4 to 5 years and mothers' and fathers' parenting dimensions and parenting styles. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Participants were composed of all 4983 of the 4- to 5-year-old children in wave 1 of the nationally representative Longitudinal Study of Australian Children with complete BMI and maternal parenting data. Mothers and fathers self-reported their parenting behaviors on 3 multi-item continuous scales (warmth, control, and irritability) and were each categorized as having 1 of 4 parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and disengaged) using internal warmth and control tertile cut..