Children's Daily Negative Affect Patterns and Food Consumption on Weekends: An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study

Abstract

Objective: This study evaluated the association between children's daily negative affect (NA) trajectories and unhealthy food consumption during weekends using ecological momentary assessment (EMA).

Design: Children answered mobile phone-based EMA surveys 7 times a day for 2 weekend days per wave, with each survey assessing current NA and past 2-hour consumption of fried foods (chips or fries), sweets (pastries or sweets), and sugary beverages (drank soda or energy drinks).

Setting: Los Angeles, California.

Participants: The sample consisted of 195 children (51% female; mean age, 9.65 years; SD, 0.93) from the Mothers and Their Children's Health cohort study.

Main outcomes measures: Negative affect trajectory (independent variable), unhealthy food consumption (dependent variable).

Analysis: Latent growth mixture modeling classified NA trajectories across days and examined their association with unhealthy food consumption.

Results: The latent growth mixture modeling identified 3 classes of daily NA trajectories: (1) stable low, (2) early increasing and late decreasing and (3) early decreasing and late increasing. Fried food consumption was higher on early increasing and late decreasing and early decreasing and late increasing NA trajectories than days with stable low NA.

Conclusions and implications: By better understanding day-to-day variability in children's affect and eating, we can individually tailor obesity interventions to account for the emotional contexts in which unhealthy eating occurs.

Keywords: health behavior; mental health; nutrition; obesity.