Investigating the relationship between family environments and children’s adoption of obesity-related behaviours in Italy.

Abstract

This study investigates the association between family-environment and children’s adoption of four obesity-related behaviours: regular physical activity, adequate fruit and vegetables (FV) consumption, having an adequate breakfast and daily snacks consumption. We perform a cross-sectional analysis using a nationally representative sample of Italian households with children (n=23,548 children from 11,518 households) collected by ISTAT over the period 2013-2016. Two sets of logit models are estimated to investigate the relationship between children’s adoption of the four behaviours under analysis and households’ characteristics (household models), as well as paternal and maternal habits (parental models). Our results show a statistically significant correlation exists between the adoption of obesity-related behaviours in adults and children within the same household. Moreover, this relationship is found to be stronger for relatively unhealthy behaviours (e.g., snacking) than for healthy ones (e.g., FV consumption) and when maternal behaviour is accounted for.