Constellations of Family Qualities and Links with Psychological and Behavioral Health in Adolescence and Young Adulthood

Positive family qualities, including low parent pressure to control weight, high physical activity support, frequent family meals, family connectedness, healthy family functioning, and parental monitoring, may promote youth psychological and behavioral health. We aimed to identify naturally occurring patterns of family qualities during adolescence and examine links with body satisfaction, self-esteem, depressive symptoms, disordered eating, and substance use during adolescence and young adulthood. Our goal was to inform family-centered interventions to prevent adverse health outcomes impacting youth. Data were from a longitudinal study of 1568 youth (53% female; 20% Asian, 29% Black, 17% Latinx, 19% White), that spanned adolescence (M age = 14.4 years) to young adulthood (M age = 22.2 years). Results from latent class analysis indicated that 8% of families were thriving, with low probability of parent pressure to control weight and high probabilities of physical activity support, frequent family meals, family connectedness, healthy family functioning, and parental monitoring. Other classes were distinguished by weight-specific risk (23% of families), broad risk (34% of families), disengagement (18% of families), and high risk (16% of families). Youth in thriving families reported better psychological and behavioral health than their peers concurrently in adolescence and longitudinally in young adulthood; yet this pattern of family qualities was rare. Family-centered interventions that target parent pressure to control weight, physical activity support, family meals, family connectedness, family functioning, and parental monitoring may help prevent multiple psychological and behavioral health problems. Heterogeneity in family qualities suggests that family-centered interventions could be tailored based on family strengths.