Perceived academic stress and depressive symptoms among Chinese adolescents: A moderated mediation analysis of overweight status

•Parent-child communication mediates the relationship between adolescents’ perceived academic stress and their depressive symptoms.•Parent-child interaction mediates the relationship between adolescents’ perceived academic stress and their depressive symptoms.•Compared to their non-overweight counterparts, overweight adolescents might suffer more severe depressive symptoms when exposed to academic stress.•Mental health services for overweight or obese children/adolescents’ should take into account their susceptibility to stress. Previous research has indicated the association of perceived stress with mental health problems. In China, Confucian collectivism and an exam-centered culture encourage parents to have high educational expectations that impose great pressure on their children's learning. However, limited research has focused on adolescents’ perceptions of the negative consequences of academic stress stemming from their parents’ educational expectations. This study addressed this research gap by examining the direct effect of adolescents’ perceptions of academic stress on their depressive symptoms and the indirect effects of both parent-child communication and interaction. We further explored the pathway differences between overweight and non-overweight adolescents. By using a sample (n = 6,566) from the first two waves of the China Education Panel Survey, moderated mediation analysis was performed to simultaneously analyze the mediating roles of parent-children communication and parent-children interaction and the moderating role of adolescent overweight status. Adolescents’ perceived academic stress (W1) was positively associated with their depressive symptoms (W2). This association was partially mediated by both parent-child communication (W1) and parent-child interaction (W1). Moreover, adolescent overweight status significantly moderated the paths between the adolescents’ perceived academic stress and their depressive symptoms, between their perceived academic stress and parent-child interaction, and the indirect relationship via parent-child interaction. Some measurement biases including self-reported, unverified, and single-item measures, alongside not considering all variations in controlled variables should be noted. The study's findings identify the significant roles of parent-child communication and parent-children interaction in contemporary China and indicate overweight adolescents’ susceptibility to stress.