Parental Weight Stigma Associated With Self-Directed Weight Talk and Use of Health-Related Restrictive Feeding Practices

Background: Parents are important conduits of weight- and health-related messaging. Weight-related communication and approaches to child feeding used by parents may reflect their past experiences with weight stigma and are understudied pathways through which intergenerational weight stigma may be transmitted. Objective: The aim of this study was to examine how experienced and internalized weight stigma among parents of children with higher weights are associated with weight-related communication and the feeding practices they use. Design: The Listening to Parents study is a cross-sectional study of 103 parent-child dyads who completed in-person study visits at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor between November 2022 through June 2023. Participants/setting: Participants were parents of children (ages 6 through 14 years, identified by parents as “heavier or overweight”) who completed the Stigmatizing Situations Inventory Brief and Weight Bias Internalization Scale-Modified, as well as questions about weight-related communication and the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire. Main outcome measures: Outcomes included 5 items corresponding to parental weight-related communication (ie, self-directed, other-directed, and child-directed weight talk, child-directed weight teasing, and child-directed encouragement to lose weight) and 3 Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire subscales (ie, Monitoring, Restriction for Health, and Restriction for Weight Control). Statistical analyses performed: Linear regression models were used to examine associations between mean scored parent-experienced and parent-internalized weight stigma and weight-related communication and feeding practices. Models were adjusted for child gender, parent-perceived child weight status, parental race and ethnicity, parental body mass index, and household income-to-needs ratio. Results: In covariate-adjusted models, parent-internalized weight stigma was positively associated with self-directed weight talk (β = .20, SE = .078; P = .01) and greater use of health-related restrictive child feeding practices (β = .16, SE = .070; P = .02). No other significant associations in covariate-adjusted models were observed. Conclusions: Although parents with greater internalized weight stigma may engage in more self-directed weight talk, they may also be more attuned to the harms of weight stigma and seek to minimize child-directed weight talk and weight teasing.