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. 2022 Dec 15;14(24):5328.
doi: 10.3390/nu14245328.

Association between Fathers' and Mothers' Parenting Styles and the Risk of Overweight/Obesity among Adolescents in San José Province, Costa Rica

Rafael Monge-Rojas  1 , Vanessa Smith-Castro  2 , Teresia M O'Connor  3 , Rulamán Vargas-Quesada  1 , Benjamín Reyes-Fernández  2
Affiliations

Association between Fathers' and Mothers' Parenting Styles and the Risk of Overweight/Obesity among Adolescents in San José Province, Costa Rica

Rafael Monge-Rojas et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Parenting styles are a risk factor for adolescents overweight/obesity worldwide, but this association is not well understood in the context of Latin America. This study examines the association between the parenting styles of mothers and fathers and the risk of overweight/obesity among Costa Rican adolescents. Data are cross-sectional from a sample of adolescents (13-18 years old) enrolled in ten urban and eight rural schools (n = 18) in the province of San José, Costa Rica, in 2017. Hierarchical logistic regression analyses were performed to assess the likelihood of adolescents being overweight according to the mothers' and fathers' parenting styles. A significant association was found between the risk of adolescent overweight/obesity and the paternal authoritarian style only in rural areas (B = 0.622, SE = 0.317, Wald = 3.864, ExpB = 1.863, p = 0.04), and between said risk and the paternal permissive style only in male adolescents (B = 0.901, SE = 0.435, Wald = 4.286, ExpB = 2.461, p = 0.038). For maternal parenting styles, no associations reached significant levels once logistic regression models were adjusted for the fathers' parenting styles. These findings underscore the importance of further studying the role of fathers' paternal parenting styles on Latin American adolescent weight outcomes. Expanding our understanding of the parenting styles of fathers has important implications for the design and implementation of culturally- and gender-appropriate family interventions.

Keywords: Costa Rica; adolescents; obesity; overweight; parenting styles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. The funder had no role in the design of the study, collection, analyses, or interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript, or decision to publish the results.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Moderating effect of area of residence on the relationship between authoritarian fathers and adolescent overweight.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Moderating effect of sex on the relationship between permissive fathers and adolescent overweight in urban areas.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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