Impact of Parental BMI on Adolescents’ BMI: Moderating Effects of Gender

Nutritional status is influenced by many factors. One of the most important factors is parental BMI not only because of genetics but also because of food choices parents make for children. The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between parents’ BMI and children’s BMI. The sample for this study consisted of 280 adolescents, 131 boys (46.8%) and 149 girls (53.2%) living in Canton Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. We measured adolescents’ BMI and we used parents’ self-reported measures to calculate parents’ and childrens’ BMI. The correlation was significant between mothers’ BMI and childrens’ BMI (r = .24, p < .01) but not between fathers’ BMI and childrens’ BMI (r = .08, p = .16). In relation to the child’s gender the correlation between mothers’ BMI is stronger for the boys (r = .28, p < .01) than for the girls (r = .20, p = .013) and fathers’ BMI was correlated with boys’ BMI (r = .19, p = .032), but not with girls’ BMI (r = .012, p = .88). The results of this study point to the complex relationship between parents’ and childrens’ BMI.

Because of the complexity of this issue and the need for more precise results, it is recommended to collect more data, with larger sample size and to include additional environmental factors into the prediction model.