Physiologic and Behavioral Correlates of Energy Intake in Emerging Adulthood: Cross-Sectional Analysis of the RIGHT Track Health Study.

Background: Consistent findings have reported that FFM is associated with EI. However, conjoint assessments of physiologic (body composition, fasting serum leptin) and behavioral [eating behaviors and physical activity (PA)] correlates of EI during emerging adulthood have not been examined.

Objectives: We assessed associations between physiologic and behavioral correlates of EI within the context of one another in emerging adults (18-28 years old).

Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Adolescents' Unhealthy Behavior: A 15-year Longitudinal Study.

Objectives: First, to leverage 15 years of longitudinal data, from child ages 2 to 17, to examine whether maternal depressive symptoms in early and middle childhood and in adolescence predict their child's unhealthy behaviors during adolescence. Second, to examine whether the timing of maternal depressive symptoms or specific unhealthy behaviors matter and whether child depressive symptoms and body mass index explain these associations.

Methods: Data came from a prospective-longitudinal community sample with multi-informant data (N = 213) from child ages 2 to17.

Emerging self-regulatory skills in childhood predict cardiometabolic risk in adolescence.

Cardiometabolic risk (CMR) has increased among adolescents. A growing literature shows that childhood self-regulatory skills are associated with obesity and CMR. However, the developmental nature of self-regulation has not been considered in existing studies.

Longitudinal associations between specific types of emotional reactivity and psychological, physical health, and school adjustment.

Using a multimethod, multiinformant longitudinal design, we examined associations between specific forms of positive and negative emotional reactivity at age 5, children's effortful control (EC), emotion regulation, and social skills at age 7, and adolescent functioning across psychological, academic, and physical health domains at ages 15/16 ( = 383). We examined how distinct components of childhood emotional reactivity directly and indirectly predict domain-specific forms of adolescent adjustment, thereby identifying developmental pathways between specific types of emotional reactivity and adjustment above and beyond the propensity to express other forms of emotional reactivity. Age 5 high-intensity positivity was associated with lower age 7 EC and more adolescent risk-taking; age 5 low-intensity positivity was associated with better age 7 EC and adolescent cardiovascular health, providing evidence for the heterogeneity of positive emotional reactivity.

Pathways from maternal depressive symptoms to children's academic performance in adolescence: A 13-year prospective-longitudinal study.

The pathways through which exposure to maternal depressive symptoms in early childhood are linked to academic performance during adolescence are poorly understood. This study tested pathways from maternal depressive symptoms (age 2-5) to adolescent academic performance (age 15) through cumulative parenting risk (age 7) and subsequent child functioning (age 10), using multi-informant data from a prospective longitudinal community study spanning 13 years (N = 389, 47% male, 68% White). Structural equation models testing indirect effects revealed small associations between maternal depressive symptoms and increased cumulative parenting risk and poorer child functioning, and, via these pathways, with poorer academic performance.

Heart Rate Dynamics During Acute Recovery From Maximal Aerobic Exercise in Young Adults.

Introduction: Resting heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV), and HR recovery (HRR) from exercise provide valuable information about cardiac autonomic control. RR-intervals during acute recovery from exercise (RR) are commonly excluded from HRV analyses due to issues of non-stationarity. However, the variability and complexity within these trends may provide valuable information about changes in HR dynamics.

Emotional Eating in Adolescence: Effects of Emotion Regulation, Weight Status and Negative Body Image.

Emotional eating is associated with an increased risk of binge eating, eating in the absence of hunger and obesity risk. While previous studies with children and adolescents suggest that emotion regulation may be a key predictor of this dysregulated eating behavior, little is known about what other factors may be influencing the link between emotional regulation and emotional eating in adolescence. This multi-method longitudinal study ( = 138) utilized linear regression models to examine associations between childhood emotion regulation, adolescent weight status and negative body image, and emotional eating at age 17.

FAMILY-LEVEL FACTORS AFFECTING SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC COMPETENCE OF AFRICAN AMERICAN CHILDREN.

Background: Research shows children's life trajectories and outcomes are strongly influenced by factors affecting development of social and academic competence that also interact with racial disparities in academic settings. Given the importance of social and academic competencies, identifying factors that promote these competencies among African American children is critical to their success over the life course.

Objective: This study examines a socioeconomically diverse sample of African American children to determine whether family-level factors promote and protect social and academic competence.

Maternal socialization of child emotion and adolescent adjustment: Indirect effects through emotion regulation.

A fundamental question in developmental science is how parental emotion socialization processes are associated with children's subsequent adaptation. Few extant studies have examined this question across multiple developmental periods and levels of analysis. Here, we tested whether mothers' supportive and nonsupportive reactions to their 5-year-old children's negative emotions were associated with teacher and adolescent self-reported adjustment at age 15 via children's physiological and behavioral emotion regulation at age 10 (N = 404).

Developmental patterns of respiratory sinus arrhythmia from toddlerhood to adolescence.

Parasympathetic nervous system functioning as indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is widely used as a measure of physiological regulation. We examined developmental patterns of children's resting RSA and RSA reactivity from 2 to 15 years of age, a period of time that is marked by considerable advances in children's regulatory abilities. Physiological data were collected from a community sample of 270 children (116 males) during a resting period and during a frustration laboratory task when the children were 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, and 15 years old.

Associations between eating behaviors, diet quality and body mass index among adolescents.

Objective: Some eating behaviors are associated with negative nutrition-related outcomes in adults, but research is lacking in adolescent samples. The current study examined whether dietary restraint moderates the relationship between disinhibition and weight outcomes and overall diet quality in a community sample of 16-year old adolescents.

Methods: Participants were recruited from a longitudinal study examining self-regulation and cardiometabolic risk.

Longitudinal Associations between Emotion Regulation and Adiposity in Late Adolescence: Indirect Effects through Eating Behaviors.

The prevalence of obesity among U.S. youth continues to increase, with many adolescents engaging in unhealthy eating behaviors.

Temperamental Anger and Positive Reactivity and the Development of Social Skills: Implications for Academic Competence during Preadolescence.

Research Findings: This study examines whether the development of social skills during childhood serves as a mechanism through which temperamental anger and positive reactivity in toddlerhood influences children's academic competence during preadolescence (N = 406). Temperamental anger at age 2 was negatively associated with children's social skills at age 7; in turn, children's social skills at age 7 were negatively associated with teacher report of academic competence and child and teacher report of school problems at age 10. All three indirect effects were significant suggesting that children's social skills at age 7 is one mechanism through which temperamental anger at age 2 is associated with age 10 child- and teacher-reported school problems.

Childhood self-regulation as a mechanism through which early overcontrolling parenting is associated with adjustment in preadolescence.

We examined longitudinal associations across an 8-year time span between overcontrolling parenting during toddlerhood, self-regulation during early childhood, and social, emotional, and academic adjustment in preadolescence (N = 422). Overcontrolling parenting, emotion regulation (ER), and inhibitory control (IC) were observed in the laboratory; preadolescent adjustment was teacher-reported and child self-reported. Results from path analysis indicated that overcontrolling parenting at age 2 was associated negatively with ER and IC at age 5, which, in turn, were associated with more child-reported emotional and school problems, fewer teacher-reported social skills, and less teacher-reported academic productivity at age 10.

The Association Between Relational Aggression and Perceived Popularity in Early Adolescence: A Test of Competing Hypotheses.

This study examined two competing hypotheses regarding the moderators of the association between relational aggression and peer status in early adolescence. The hypothesis examined whether positive social behaviors reduced the negative effects of relational aggression, thus amplifying the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity. The hypothesis examined whether leadership skills facilitated the proficient use of relational aggression, thus amplifying the association between relational aggression and perceived popularity.

Self-regulation as a predictor of patterns of change in externalizing behaviors from infancy to adolescence.

We examined associations between specific self-regulatory mechanisms and externalizing behavior patterns from ages 2 to 15 (N = 443). The relation between multiple self-regulatory indicators across multiple domains (i.e.

Vagal Regulation of Cardiac Function in Early Childhood and Cardiovascular Risk in Adolescence.

Objective: Poor behavioral self-regulation in the first 2 decades of life has been identified as an important precursor of disease risk in adulthood. However, physiological regulation has not been well studied as a disease risk factor before adulthood. We tested whether physiological regulation at the age of 2 years, in the form of vagal regulation of cardiac function (indexed by respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA] change), would predict three indicators of cardiovascular risk at the age of 16 years (diastolic and systolic blood pressure and body mass index).

Mothers' and Fathers' Reports of their Supportive Responses to their Children's Negative Emotions over Time.

Objective: Parents' emotion socialization practices are thought to be moderately stable over time; however, a partner's socialization practices could initiate change.

Design: We examined mothers' and fathers' reports of their supportive responses to their children's negative emotions when the target child was 7 years old and again at age 10. We tested a dyadic, longitudinal path model with 111 mother-father pairs.

Childhood temperament predictors of adolescent physical activity.

Background: Physical inactivity is a leading cause of mortality worldwide. Many patterns of physical activity involvement are established early in life. To date, the role of easily identifiable early-life individual predictors of PA, such as childhood temperament, remains relatively unexplored.

Indirect Effects of Emotion Regulation on Peer Acceptance and Rejection:The Roles of Positive and Negative Social Behaviors.

A growing body of literature indicates that childhood emotion regulation predicts later success with peers, yet little is known about the processes through which this association occurs. The current study examined mechanisms through which emotion regulation was associated with later peer acceptance and peer rejection, controlling for earlier acceptance and rejection. Data included mother-, teacher-, and peer-reports on 338 children (55% girls, 68% European American) at ages 7 and 10.

Rationale, design and methods for the RIGHT Track Health Study: pathways from childhood self-regulation to cardiovascular risk in adolescence.

Background: Cardiovascular risk factors during adolescence-including obesity, elevated lipids, altered glucose metabolism, hypertension, and elevated low-grade inflammation-is cause for serious concern and potentially impacts subsequent morbidity and mortality. Despite the importance of these cardiovascular risk factors, very little is known about their developmental origins in childhood. In addition, since adolescence is a time when individuals are navigating major life changes and gaining increasing autonomy from their parents or parental figures, it is a period when control over their own health behaviors (e.

Parenting Stress, Parental Reactions, and Externalizing Behavior From Ages 4 to 10.

The association between parenting stress and child externalizing behavior, and the mediating role of parenting, has yielded inconsistent findings; however, the literature has typically been cross-sectional and unidirectional. In the current study the authors examined the longitudinal transactions among parenting stress, perceived negative parental reactions, and child externalizing at 4, 5, 7, and 10 years old. Models examining parent effects (parenting stress to child behavior), child effects (externalizing to parental reactions and stress), indirect effects of parental reactions, and the transactional associations among all variables, were compared.

Identifying developmental cascades among differentiated dimensions of social competence and emotion regulation.

This study used data from 356 children, their mothers, teachers, and peers to examine the longitudinal and dynamic associations among 3 dimensions of social competence derived from Hinde's (1987) framework of social complexity: social skills, peer group acceptance, and friendship quality. Direct and indirect associations among each discrete dimension of social competence and emotion regulation were also examined. The results suggest that there are important distinctions among the dimensions of social competence as they relate to one another and to emotion regulation.