Does food insecurity affect parental characteristics and child behavior? Testing mediation effects

Jin Huang1, Karen M Matta Oshima, Youngmi Kim

  • 1Washington University in St. Louis.

The Social Service Review
|September 29, 2010
PubMed

Insights

Household food insecurity increases child behavior problems, primarily through heightened parenting stress. Further research is needed due to inconsistent findings across analytical methods.

Area of Science:

  • Child Psychology
  • Family Studies
  • Socioeconomic Research

Background:

  • Investigates the link between household food insecurity and child behavior problems.
  • Examines the mediating role of parental characteristics: parenting stress, warmth, psychological distress, and self-esteem.

Observation:

  • Utilizes two waves of data from the Child Development Supplement (CDS) within the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID).
  • Employs fixed-effects analyses on a low-income sample of 416 children from 249 households.

Findings:

  • Parenting stress significantly mediates the relationship between food insecurity and child behavior problems.
  • Robustness tests yielded inconsistent results compared to fixed-effects models, indicating complexity in the relationship.

Implications:

  • Highlights parenting stress as a key pathway through which food insecurity impacts child behavior.
  • Suggests the need for further investigation using alternative methodologies and measures to clarify the food insecurity-child behavior link.

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