Collaborative ECHO research led by Traci Bekelman, PhD, MPH and Katherine Sauder, PhD of the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus, investigates whether parents’ coping strategies, stress, and financial strain affected their children’s health behaviors during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The researchers found that children with parents who were able to change their work schedules to care for their children during the pandemic had less screen time and slept longer at night, while children with parents who were unable to adjust their work schedules due to stress about money and access to food drank more sugary drinks, were less active, and slept less at night. This research, titled “Sociodemographic Variation in Children’s Health Behaviors During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” is published in Childhood Obesity.
This study included 3,315 children between 3 and 17 years old from 50 ECHO cohorts across the United States. Parents answered questions about their child’s diet, physical activity, screen time, and sleep during the first seven months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the parents reported how they personally coped with the pandemic and what their largest sources of stress was.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed many families’ routines and financial situations, causing an increase in parents’ stress and affecting children’s diet, physical activity, and sleep behaviors. “Parents stressed about money may need additional resources to help their children to eat healthier, increase their physical activity and sleep, and decrease their screen time,” said Dr. Bekelman. “Going forward, we will continue to look at how financial stress and parents’ work schedules affect children’s health behaviors to help guide the design of future interventions that can encourage healthy behaviors among children, especially during stressful times like a pandemic.”