Links among parental incarceration, food insecurity, household ACEs, and disordered eating in US youth

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To examine whether parental incarceration is related to increased risk for disordered eating (ie, fasting, binge eating, purging, compulsive exercise) among children and adolescents in the US.

STUDY DESIGN: We used data from the 2022 and 2023 National Survey of Children's Health, an annual cross-sectional, nationally-representative survey of U.S. children. Analyses were restricted to youth ages 6-17 with parental incarceration data (n=65,321). Logistic regression models were conducted, adjusting for age, sex, race, ethnicity, parental education, and body mass index.

RESULTS: Both food insecurity and parental incarceration were associated with increased risk of fasting, binge eating, and purging. Youth who experienced parental incarceration had 1.74 greater odds of reporting any disordered eating over the last year. Food insecurity was not a significant moderator in any model. The association between parental incarceration and disordered eating differed across levels of household adverse childhood event (ACE) exposure; parental incarceration was related to greater odds of disordered eating only at low household ACE exposure and attenuated at higher exposure.

CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest that experiencing the incarceration of a parent heightens disordered eating risk independent of food insecurity. However, it is unclear whether parental incarceration exerts unique effects among children with high trauma exposure, which should be explored in future research.