University of Pittsburgh, 210 South Bouquet Street, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2019 Sep;22(3):290-315. doi: 10.1007/s10567-019-00279-z.
Deficits in self-regulation (SR) have been proposed as a potential contributor to child overweight/obesity, a public health concern that disproportionately affects children living in poverty. Although poverty is known to influence SR, SR has not been considered as a potential mechanism in the association between poverty and child obesity. The aim of the current paper was to systematically review the current literature to determine whether SR is a viable mechanism in the relationship between child exposure to poverty and later risk of overweight/obesity. We systematically review and summarize literature in three related areas with the aim of generating a developmentally informed model that accounts for the consistent association between poverty and child weight, specifically how: (1) poverty relates to child weight, (2) poverty relates to child SR, and (3) SR is associated with weight. To quantify the strength of associations for each pathway, effect sizes were collected and aggregated. Findings from the studies included suggest small but potentially meaningful associations between poverty and child SR and between SR and child weight. The conceptualization and measurement of SR, however, varied across literature studies and made it difficult to determine whether SR can feasibly connect poverty to child obesity. Although SR may be a promising potential target for obesity intervention for low-income children, additional research on how SR affects risk of obesity is crucial, especially based on the lack of success of the limited number of SR-promoting interventions for improving children's weight outcomes.
自我调节（SR）缺陷被认为是导致儿童超重/肥胖的一个潜在因素，这是一个公共卫生关注点，尤其影响生活在贫困中的儿童。尽管贫困被认为会影响自我调节，但在贫困与儿童肥胖之间的关联中，自我调节尚未被视为一个潜在的机制。本研究旨在系统地回顾当前文献，以确定自我调节是否是儿童暴露于贫困与日后超重/肥胖风险之间关系的一个可行机制。我们系统地回顾和总结了三个相关领域的文献，旨在生成一个具有发展意识的模型，该模型解释了贫困与儿童体重之间的一致性关联，具体为：（1）贫困与儿童体重的关系；（2）贫困与儿童自我调节的关系；（3）自我调节与体重的关系。为了量化每个途径的关联强度，我们收集并汇总了效应量。纳入研究的结果表明，贫困与儿童自我调节之间以及自我调节与儿童体重之间存在着微小但具有潜在意义的关联。然而，自我调节的概念化和测量在文献研究中存在差异，这使得难以确定自我调节是否可以将贫困与儿童肥胖联系起来。尽管自我调节可能是针对低收入儿童肥胖干预的一个有前途的潜在目标，但关于自我调节如何影响肥胖风险的额外研究至关重要，特别是考虑到为数不多的促进自我调节的干预措施在改善儿童体重结果方面的有限成功。
