Background
Methods
Data sources
Abbreviation | Type | Description |
---|---|---|
BMI | Continuous | Child BMI z-score for age based on CDC growth reference. The adjustment was made by the data provider. |
BMI1 | Continuous | Parent 1’s BMI. Parent 1 is the primary carer who knows best of the child. |
BMI2 | Continuous | Parent 2’s BMI. Parent 2 is Parent 1’s partner or another adult in the home with a parental relationship to the study child. In most cases this is the biological father, but step-fathers are also common. |
FTA | Discrete | Study child’s choice to spend free time. 1: inactive, 2: both, 3: active. The data was collected via the face-to-face interview (F2F) with P1 and the study child. |
CD | Discrete | SDQ conduct problems scale (integer 0 to 10) of child. Higher value indicates more severe conduct problem. The SDQ was completed by P1 during the interview questionnaire (P1D). |
DP1 | Discrete | Parent 1 depression K6 score. Higher value indicates less depression. |
EG | Continuous | Total minutes playing electronic games per week. This was reported by P1. |
EM | Discrete | SDQ emotional problems scale (integer 0 to 10) of child. Higher value indicates more severe emotional problem. The SDQ was completed by P1 during the interview questionnaire (P1D). |
FH | Discrete | Household financial hardship score (0–6). 0: not hard; 6: very hard. |
FS | Discrete | Parent 1 financial stress (1–6). 1: prosperous; 2: very comfortable; 3: reasonably comfortable; 4: just getting along; 5: poor; 6: very poor. The data was collected by F2F interview with P1. |
INC | Continuous | Usual weekly income for household. |
P1E | Discrete | P1’s high school level. Higher value indicates more high school years completed. |
P2E | Discrete | P2’s high school level. Higher value indicates more high school years completed. |
OD | Discrete | The quality of outdoor environment. Higher value indicates worse outdoor environment. This is derived from several F2F questions about the neighbourhood. |
RP1 | Discrete | The scale of Parent 1 feeling rushed. Higher value indicates being less rushed. This data was completed by P1 during the interview questionnaire (P1D). |
SE | Continuous | The z-score for socioeconomic position among all families. The derivation of this variable can be found in Gibbings et. al. [10]. |
SL | Discrete | The study child sleep quality. Higher value indicates better sleep quality. The data was collected via the face-to-face interview (F2F) which was conducted with P1 and the study child. This variable is a summation of several questions, such as wheezing, snoring, waking during the night, bed wetting, nightmares and so on. |
SEX | Discrete | Gender. 1: male; 2: female. |
TV | Continuous | Total minutes watching TV per week. This was reported by P1. |
BWZ | Continuous | Birth weight Z-score. |
GW | Discrete | Gestation weeks. |
FV | Discrete | Serves of fruit and vegetables per day. This was reported by P1. |
HF | Discrete | Serves of high-fat food (inc. whole milk) per day. This was reported by P1. |
HSD | Discrete | Serves of high-sugar drinks per day. |
SLD | Continuous | Sleep time duration (in hours). This was reported by P1. |
LOTE | Discrete | Is the child regularly spoken to in a language other than English by you or other relatives, babysitters or at child care, pre-school or school? 1: NO, 2: YES. This data is collected via F2F with P1. |
Study design
Learning a Bayesian network
Results
Characteristic | Underweight N = 107a | Normal N = 1601a | Overweight N = 427a |
---|---|---|---|
Female | 57 (53%) | 763 (48%) | 218 (51%) |
BMI z-score (BMI) | -1.86 (0.68) | 0.13 (0.59) | 1.62 (0.38) |
socioeconomic position (SE) | 0.35 (0.99) | 0.33 (0.92) | 0.06 (0.88) |
Child’s choice to spend free time (FTA) | |||
Active | 29 (27%) | 430 (27%) | 86 (20%) |
Active and inactive | 55 (51%) | 750 (47%) | 199 (47%) |
Inactive | 23 (21%) | 420 (26%) | 142 (33%) |
Total No. of TV minutes for an average week (TV) | 12 (7) | 13 (8) | 14 (8) |
Total No. of electronic game minutes for an average week (EG) | 5.3 (5.2) | 5.0 (4.9) | 5.3 (5.4) |
SDQ Emotional symptoms scale (EM) | 2.06 (1.99) | 1.62 (1.76) | 1.82 (1.87) |
SDQ Conduct problems scale (CD) | 1.00 (1.14) | 1.08 (1.30) | 1.30 (1.44) |
Weekly household income (annual) (INC) | |||
$0–$999 ($0–$51999) | 10 (9.3%) | 86 (5.4%) | 46 (11%) |
$1000–$1999 ($52,000–$103,999) | 34 (32%) | 516 (32%) | 133 (31%) |
$2000–$2999 ($104,000–$155,999) | 37 (35%) | 540 (34%) | 154 (36%) |
$3000 or more ($156,000 or more) | 26 (24%) | 459 (29%) | 94 (22%) |
How family is getting on financially (FS) | |||
Prosperous/very comfortable | 25 (23%) | 533 (33%) | 113 (26%) |
Comfortable/getting along | 82 (77%) | 1,057 (66%) | 308 (72%) |
Poor/very poor | 0 (0%) | 11 (0.7%) | 6 (1.4%) |
Hardship scale (FH) | 0.15 (0.45) | 0.13 (0.51) | 0.21 (0.56) |
Parental school completion (P1E) | 78 (73%) | 1,281 (80%) | 302 (71%) |
Parental school completion (P2E) | 68 (64%) | 1,088 (68%) | 265 (62%) |
Parental body mass index (BMI1) | 24.2 (4.9) | 25.5 (5.1) | 28.8 (6.0) |
Parental body mass index (BMI2) | 25.7 (3.3) | 27.3 (3.9) | 29.4 (4.7) |
Frequency of feeling rushed (RP1) | |||
Always/often | 65 (61%) | 992 (62%) | 242 (57%) |
Sometimes | 37 (35%) | 502 (31%) | 149 (35%) |
Rarely/never | 5 (4.7%) | 107 (6.7%) | 36 (8.4%) |
K-6 Depression scale summed score (DP1) | 8.57 (2.65) | 8.42 (2.83) | 8.86 (3.33) |
Frequency ate fruit and vegetables (FV) | 3.19 (1.25) | 3.41 (1.38) | 3.28 (1.38) |
Frequency ate high-fat food (inc. whole milk) (HF) | 3.20 (1.41) | 3.24 (1.43) | 3.12 (1.54) |
Frequency drank high-sugar drinks (HSD) | 0.99 (1.08) | 0.94 (1.02) | 1.04 (1.07) |
Poor sleep quality (SL)b | 33 (31%) | 463 (29%) | 116 (27%) |
Wake up in the morning (Time) (SLD) | 612 (43) | 618 (38) | 611 (43) |
Child regularly spoken to in a language other than English (LOTE) | 23 (21%) | 251 (16%) | 69 (16%) |
No. weeks of gestation (GW) | 38.23 (6.01) | 38.92 (3.76) | 39.01 (3.44) |
Birth weight z-score (BWZ) | -0.42 (0.99) | 0.04 (1.04) | 0.21 (1.10) |
Central role of socio-economic status and parental education over all time points
Wave | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
B cohort | NA | 1.000 | 1.000 | 0.998 | 0.999 | 1.000 | 1.000 |
K cohort | 0.996 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | 1.000 | NA |
Free time activity becomes a driver of obesity as children age
From | To | Probability |
---|---|---|
BMI1 | BMI | 1.000 |
BMI2 | BMI | 1.000 |
BWZ | BMI | 1.000 |
GW | BWZ | 1.000 |
SE | TV | 1.000 |
SEX | EG | 1.000 |
SEX | CD | 1.000 |
TV | EG | 1.000 |
SE | INC | 0.998 |
SE | BMI1 | 0.997 |
SE | RP1 | 0.997 |
SE | FV | 0.995 |
EG | FTA | 0.992 |
FTA | BMI | 0.991 |
DP1 | CD | 0.990 |
SE | HSD | 0.989 |
SE | FTA | 0.983 |
DP1 | RP1 | 0.980 |
LOTE | FV | 0.979 |
FS | DP1 | 0.975 |
FS | FH | 0.960 |
SE | FS | 0.952 |
LOTE | BWZ | 0.945 |
SL | SLD | 0.937 |
SE | HF | 0.936 |
SEX | SLD | 0.929 |
DP1 | EM | 0.917 |
EM | CD | 0.903 |
SL | INC | 0.884 |
P1E | SL | 0.864 |
SL | RP1 | 0.859 |
SL | EM | 0.848 |
BMI2 | INC | 0.846 |
LOTE | FTA | 0.843 |
EG | FV | 0.831 |
BMI1 | BMI2 | 0.815 |
SEX | EM | 0.772 |
FS | INC | 0.732 |
TV | RP1 | 0.719 |
BMI1 | BWZ | 0.714 |
SE | BMI2 | 0.688 |
HSD | HF | 0.683 |
BMI1 | FS | 0.613 |
FH | DP1 | 0.555 |
SL | DP1 | 0.503 |
FV | FTA | 0.496 |
P2E | P1E | 0.490 |
P1E | SE | 0.486 |
TV | HSD | 0.471 |
P2E | SE | 0.444 |
FH | SL | 0.427 |
BMI1 | FH | 0.406 |
P1E | FS | 0.365 |
EM | RP1 | 0.343 |
BMI1 | TV | 0.298 |
FTA | EM | 0.292 |
INC | RP1 | 0.287 |
HF | SL | 0.284 |
FTA | SL | 0.179 |
FH | RP1 | 0.148 |