Background: Stress may compromise parenting practices related to children's dietary intake, physical activity, and sedentary behavior.
Purpose: The current study used Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to examine microtemporal sequences underlying maternal stress and subsequent weight-related parenting practices.
Methods: Mothers (n = 199) of children aged 8-12 years participated in two separate 7-day waves of EMA with up to eight randomly prompted surveys per day during children's nonschool time. EMA items assessed stress and weight-related parenting practices.
Results: When mothers reported experiencing greater stress than usual, they subsequently engaged in less physical activity parenting (e.g., encouraging physical activity; p < .05) and more sedentary screen behavior parenting (e.g., limiting TV/video games; p < .05) over the next 2 hr.
Conclusions: Addressing within-day variations in maternal stress may be an important component of parent-focused child obesity prevention interventions.
Keywords: Dietary intake; Ecological momentary assessment; Maternal stress; Physical activity; Sedentary behavior; Weight-related parenting.
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