Abstract:
Maternal stress is associated with their adolescents’ overweight or obesity, fast food
consumption, less physical activity and variety of behavioral problem. But few researches
have done on this topic. For this reason, present research has been undertaken. Objective
of the current research was to find out whether overweight and over schedule have any
mediating relationship of maternal stress and decision making with emotional and social
impairment of adolescent. Two hundred eleven over weight adolescents (11-14 years)
were selected purposively from Dhaka based different public and private schools. Their
mothers were also included in the study. Another one hundred twenty-nine adolescent
participants of normal body weight and their mothers were also selected as control
subjects. Life stress questionnaire, Melbourne Decision Making Questionnaire (MDMQ),
Over scheduled scale for adolescents and BECK Youth Inventories of Emotional and
Social Impairment were used in the study for collecting information from participants.
Parallel mediation analysis, Pearson product moment correlation, descriptive statistical
analysis, t-test and F test were used to analyze the scores. Findings revealed that,
maternal stress has a significant and positive direct effect on adolescents overweight
(a=.51) and over scheduling (d=.59) and the direct effect of adolescents’ overweight and
over schedule on their emotional and social impairment is statistically significant(b=.35),
(e=.52). Maternal stress has a significant and positive indirect effect on adolescents
emotional and social impairment(c’=.49). Maternal decision making has a significant and
positive direct effect on adolescents overweight (a=.47) and over schedule (d=.58). The
direct effect of adolescents’ overweight and over schedule on their emotional and social
impairment was statistically found significant(b=.35), (e=.52). Maternal decision making
has a significant and positive indirect effect on adolescents emotional and social
impairment(c’=.45). Results of correlation indicated that adolescents over schedule is
positively correlated with emotional and social impairment (r=.785), maternal stress
(r=.593) and maternal decision making (r= .575). Emotional and social impairment of
adolescents is positively correlated with maternal stress (r= .524) and maternal decision
making (r= .507).
Description:
This Thesis Submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh, in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology.