Pergamon zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Sm. S-i. Med. Vol. 38, No. 9, 1299-I 305, 1994 pp. 0277~ 9536(93)EOO52-G Copyright 0 1994 Elscvier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 02179536194 $6.00 + 0.00 CONCORDANCE OF PARENTAL AND ADOLESCENT HEALTH BEHAVIORS INGEBORG Rossowl and JOSTEIN RISE* ‘Institute of Community Dentistry University of Oslo, Norway and *Research Center for Health Promotion, Environment and Lifestyle, University of Bergen, Norway Abstract-This paper reports upon an empirical study of health behaviors in adolescents and their parents. The study aimed at assessing: effects of parental health behaviors on that of their adolescent child; whether mother’s and father’s health behaviors have additive effects on the respective health behaviors of their child; and whether eventual effects of parental health behaviors decrease with increasing age of the child. The data stemmed from the Norwegian national Health Survey in 1985 and comprised separate interviews with two parents and an adolescent child in 337 families. Results from logistic regression analyses showed that the strongest association found between parental and adolescent health behaviors was for fat intake, and the probability of having a low fat intake was 5 times higher if the mother had a low fat intake than if she did not. With the exception of mother’s frequency of exercise, all other parental health behaviors were positively and statistically significantly associated with the corresponding health behavior of their adolescent child. Parental fat intake, smoking behavior and alcohol consumption appeared to have additive effects on the corresponding behaviors of their children. No statistically significant interaction between any of the parental health behaviors and age of the adolescent was found. Hence, the effect of parental health behaviors on that of their adolescent child does not seem to decrease with increasing age of the adolescent. The results are discussed with reference to the functions of modeling. Key words-health behaviors, parents, adolescents, modeling INTRODUCTION During childhood and adolescence most individuals develop and establish a lifestyle within which a range of health behaviors are embedded. With few excep- tions the family represents the primary influencing social institution and framework for the performance of health behaviors [l]. Yet, much of the research on family and health has failed to conceptualize the family qua family and thereby not considered the family as a total unit [2]. Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated significant associations between parental and adoles- cent health behaviors [3,4]. However, a major short- coming of most studies in this area is that parental health behaviors are often reported by the adoles- cents and not by the parents themselves [S]. Thus, the correlation between ratings of own behavior and ratings of similar others’ behavior may be inflated due to motivated social projection, and in this way the raters psychologically make others similar to themselves and thereby attain a sense of self- validation, a phenomenon known as the false consen- sus effect [6]. This was aptly demonstrated by Aas er al. [7] who observed that the correlation between the drinking behavior of parents and children was significantly higher when based upon reports by the adolescents themselves, compared to when each re- spondent reported their own drinking behavior. In a methodological study on young adults’ reports of parental drinking O’Malley et al. [8] found that half of the respondents either over-reported or under- reported the frequency with which their parents con- sumed alcohol. This means that the direct parental modeling effect may have been over-estimated. A related issue is that most of the studies have focused on the association between adolescent health behavior and that of one of the parents [3]. Since parental behaviors may not necessarily be congruous, the measure of one parent’s behavior may not be a valid measure of the parental influence in terms of modelling effect. Thus, assessment of parental influ- ence on adolescent behavior should therefore be sought by applying measures on both parents’ behav- iors. Furthermore, it may be of interest to assess the relative importance of the two parents as models for their children’s health behaviors, and to assess whether the parental influential effects are of an additive or interactional nature. For example, Nolte zyxwvutsrqpon et al. [9] observed that there was an additive effect of parents’ smoking behaviors on that of their adoles- cent child, so that the probability of an adolescent’s daily smoking was twice as high if both parents smoked and half as high if neither parents smoked, compared to if either parent smoked. There seems, however, to be few empirical studies on additive effects of parental health behaviors on that of their children. A third issue of great empirical, thee, -tical as well as practical concern is whether the parental influence 1299