Nonresident Father Involvement and Child Obesity

Background and Purpose:

Half of all children in the US will spend some time in a single-parent family, most often with a single mother and a nonresident father. Because there is only one parent in the household, these children receive less parental time and resources, which is associated with poor outcomes across various domains of well-being. Nonresident fathers’ involvement has been linked to improved health and developmental outcomes for children and thus can potentially address these disparities.  One outcome that has been rarely considered in this area of research is child obesity, which is now a major public health concern, with one of five young children in the US being obese. Further, children in low-income families, who are disproportionately represented in single-mother families, are at much greater risk for obesity. Given the generally beneficial effects of nonresident father involvement for other indicators of child well-being, it is important to understand whether their involvement can also reduce child obesity.

Methods: Data come from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FF), a panel study of nearly 5000 children born in large urban areas in the US and followed until age 9. Child obesity, assessed by trained interviewers during in-home interviews, is indicated if the child’s age for sex BMI was at or above the 95^th percentile, as per the CDC guidelines, at age 3, 5, and 9. Numerous domains of nonresident father involvement are considered, including financial support, contact with children, and engagement with children in activities, at every wave. Analyses take advantage of longitudinal data and rich measures of child, mother, father, and family characteristics, including both parents’ weight status, which is not available in most other datasets.

Results: Results from multivariate models indicate that the number of days that nonresident fathers saw their children in the past month was significantly associated with child obesity, controlling for socio-demographic characteristics of the mother and father, fathers’ financial contributions, mothers’ health and health behaviors, child sex, age, and health, and both parents’ BMI. Ten extra days per month of contact with the father was associated with 19% higher odds of obesity for the child, or a 3 percentage point higher probability of obesity. Fathers’ provision of in-kind (or non-cash) support to children was associated with lower risk of obesity, though other types of material support had no association.

Implications/Conclusions: These results suggest that fathers’ time spent with children may increase their exposure to unhealthy eating patterns and contribute to higher rates of obesity. Analyses will be extended to explore whether these associations hold up for all fathers, including resident biological fathers, and resident social fathers (mothers’ new partners).  Overall these findings point to the importance of including fathers in education and prevention efforts aimed at reducing child obesity.