Maternal Employment, Work Schedules and Children’s Body Mass Index

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, most U.S. mothers work. In light of this reality, the study considers the influence of mothers’ work schedules on children’s body mass index, a measure of weight for height.

Researchers found a link between the cumulative time mothers have worked in their child’s lifetime and a slight increase in that child’s BMI. For a child of average height, the increase was equivalent to a gain in weight of nearly 1 pound beyond what would typically be gained as a child ages. Researchers tested several factors that could have accounted for this association between maternal employment and child BMI, including the amount of television children watched and the time of day mothers worked. Children’s eating and sleeping patterns were not examined, including the quality, quantity and consistency of these patterns.

The data are from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a study that tracked approximately 1,000 babies from infancy until age 15. Researchers looked at school-age children in 3rd, 5th and 6th grades.

The study appears in the January/February 2011 issue of Child Development.

Read the report.