Maternal Work Hours: Effects on Mothers' and Daughters' Weight Status and Daughters' Food Intake Away from Home
Open Access
- Author:
- Bleser, Julia Andrea
- Graduate Program:
- Human Development and Family Studies
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- None
- Committee Members:
- Leann L Birch, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Jennifer Savage Williams, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor - Keywords:
- obesity
family
employment
diet
nutrition
child - Abstract:
- Background: A small body of research reveals that maternal work hours are positively related to both mothers’ and children’s weight. However, little is known as to the longitudinal mechanisms at work in this relation. In particular, it is unclear whether variables related to employment, such as food eaten away from the home (FAFH), mediate the relation between maternal work hours and family weight status by contributing increased calories to the family diet. Objective: The aims of the current study were to 1) examine the associations between maternal employment and mothers’ weight status; 2) examine the association between maternal employment and daughters’ weight status; 3) determine the quality of food eaten away from home by daughters; and 4) assess whether daughters’ food eaten away from home mediated the effects of mother work hours on daughter weight status. Methods: Subjects include 167 girls and their mothers from the Girls’ NEEDS Study. Participants were enrolled in the study at age 5 and followed biennially for 10 years, until age 15. Primary outcomes of this current study were mothers’ BMI and daughters’ BMI-for-age percentiles (BMIp) obtained biennially through laboratory measures of height and weight. Other measures included the proportion of daughters’ meals eaten away from home (FAFH) and macronutrient composition of those meals, as measured through 24-hour dietary recalls. Mothers’ work hours was measured via self-report. Repeated measures analysis of variance (PROC MIXED) was used to assess the effects of maternal work hours and FAFH on maternal and daughter BMI change over 10 years. A mediation model tested whether the effect of maternal work hours on daughter BMIp was mediated by FAFH at ages 5 and 15. Results: Maternal work hours increased over the 10-year period. At each time point, mothers who worked more hours had daughters with lower BMIp. Women whose work hours increased over time tended to have children who ate more FAFH over time, before but not after adjusting for covariates. FAFH was not a significant predictor of daughter BMIp or of increases in BMIp across waves, indicating that FAFH is not a mediator of the relation between work hours and daughters’ weight. However, meals eaten away from home were found to be higher in energy density, total and added sugars, and total fat. Greater work hours did not predict greater maternal BMI across waves. Conclusions: As daughters developed from childhood into adolescence, maternal work hours increased. Work hours predicted daughters’ BMI percentiles after controlling for family demographics. There was a trend for an interaction between work hours and wave in predicting daughters’ FAFH intake, before but not after adjusting for covariates including maternal educational attainment. Maternal work hours were not predictive of maternal BMI, nor was daughters’ FAFH intake predictive of daughters’ BMI percentiles. While the mediation model could not be tested, FAFH foods were of lower dietary quality than foods eaten at home or school, indicating an opportunity to intervene in the diets of daughters of working mothers.