TITLE:
The Relationship of Psychological Symptoms among Mothers of Children in Different Body Mass Index Categories
AUTHORS:
Gulsen Meral, Aysegul Uslu, Asli Bostanci
KEYWORDS:
Family, Children, Body Mass Index, Feeding Problems, Depression
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Pediatrics,
Vol.6 No.2,
May
20,
2016
ABSTRACT: We tried to emphasize the importance of psychological status analysis of the
mothers of children, who have abnormal Body Mass Index (BMI), when treating
these children. Materials and methods: Our study enrolled mothers of 150
children in normal, high and low BMI categories who were admitted to Kagithane
State Hospital. The inclusion criteria required that these children had no
chronic disease, developmental defect, and diagnosed psychological or physical
disease impairing the reliability of the interview. Symptom Check List
(SCL-90-R) and Beck Depression Scale (BDS) were used on all mothers of these
children. In this study, BDS values of high BMI children’s mothers were
significantly higher than those of normal BMI children’s mothers and BDS values
of mothers of low BMI children were found to be higher than those of mothers of
normal BMI children. The SCL-90-R results between mothers of high and normal
BMI, high and low BMI, normal and low BMI children were statistically
significant. We observed the effect of the psychological state of the family on
childhood eating habits and the higher incidence of childhood feeding problems
in families with psychopathology. Currently family therapy is indicated according
to guidelines in solving eating disorders in children. This approach may also
be useful for children with abnormal BMI.