Intergenerational Determinants of Weight Status Concordance and Discordance in Parent/Adolescent Dyads from the Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating Study

Background: Studies have shown that obesity (OB) has strong intergenerational linkages and tends to cluster in families, but there is a dearth of research examining the socioecological factors predictive of weight status concordance and discordance among parents and adolescents. Methods: We ran a stepwise multinomial logistic regression to assess for sociodemographic, individual-, and family-level predictors of four dyadic weight status groups using data from 1516 parent/adolescent dyads from the National Cancer Institute's Family Life, Activity, Sun, Health, and Eating Study. We categorized parent/adolescent dyads into one of four groups based on their BMI: (1) Healthy Weight Concordance (i.e., both parent and adolescent in the normal weight range); (2) overweight (OW)/OB Concordance (i.e., both parent and adolescent with OW or OB); (3) Discordance-Parent OW/OB (i.e., parent with OW/OB and adolescent in the normal weight range); or (4) Discordance-Adolescent OW/OB (i.e., adolescent with OW/OB and parent in the normal weight range). Results: There were 475 parent/adolescent dyads (31.3%) in the Healthy Weight Concordance group, 351 (23.2%) in the OW/OB Concordance group, 604 (39.8%) in the Discordance-Parent OW/OB group, and 86 (5.7%) in the Discordance-Adolescent OW/OB group. Being from a low socioeconomic family, identifying as a minority, and identifying as a male parent were associated with an OW/OB dyadic BMI. Higher levels of adolescent and parent emotional eating were significantly associated with parent/adolescent dyads being in the OW/OB Concordance group. Parent emotional eating was also associated with Discordance-Parent OW/OB. In contrast, parents' and adolescents' physical activity self-efficacy was associated with a Healthy Weight dyadic BMI vs. OW/OB Concordance or Discordance-Parent OW/OB. Conclusions: Our findings highlight the strength of OW/OB concordance in families, especially among lower socioeconomic and ethnic minority families and the significance of emotional eating and physical activity self-efficacy in contributing to BMI patterns among parents and adolescents.